I just love hanging out in the catio every morning!!
The Mother of Cats has been staying home with us every single day lately. Why is this happening? Look at what is going on in the afternoons…
Yep. It is really hot, the air pressure is pretty darn low, and the Mother of Cats doesn’t do very well when the air gets like that. Hey, I’m a cat. I just roll with it and spend the day sleeping, but for some reason the Mother of Cats stays awake all day and does stuff.
Hannah: Do you see me?
To be fair, she does give me lots of attention and cookies, but mostly she crafts ENDLESSLY. There is so much going on, and the CoalBear and I are starting to get a little concerned.
She has been working on her quilt. I like the quilting, and I help her as much as I can. Look at the two quilt blocks that she has been working on over the last two weeks.
The next cat that is featured in the quilt will be a tuxedo like me. Not as cute as me, but still, it is nice that she will have a quilt showing how absolutely superior tuxedo cats are. I think that there is also a squirrel and a tree involved, so that is perfect, right?
Now, let’s get to the knitting. That is where things have really gotten out of control. First there are the shawls…
That’s right: four shawls!!! The first one was really fussy and hard on the Mother of Cats hands, so she ripped it out. (Good job, Mother of Cats) She said that she obviously can’t be expected to knit a shawl that was too complicated to let her listen to an audiobook or watch Netflix
Mateo: I’m terrified of Netflix!!! That huge red N is too much for me to deal with. No one should be subjected to the…TA-DUM!!!!Hannah: but Mateo rushes into the room EVERY TIME the television gets turned on just in case it is… NETFLIX. CoalBears can be so silly.
Let’s get back to the shawls. The Mother of Cats has a lot of yarn. She isn’t making hats right now because it is hot, and there are too many hats at the infusion centers right now, so she decided to make a shawl or two. Since the first shawl was soooo complicated, she started a simple Age of Gold shawl in pink yarn. Then she started a Sharon Show shawl because she saw one hanging up in the yarn store. Then Tabby Road started, so she had to knit on that, right. This is just kind of insane because at the same time…
The Mother of Cats decided to knit some octopuses… Yep. All of that yarn has now been wound. Hold onto your tuna treats, because I’m not done yet. The Mother of Cats, still upset about not knitting hats, and hugging a huge box of left over yarn balls (why doesn’t she give them to me?), decided to start knitting a BLANKET that will be made of a bunch of different octogons that kind of go together.
She made this holding two little balls of yarn together while she knitted. Did she let me chew the yarn while she worked? No. SHE DID NOT!!!!
Do you see why I am concerned about needing an intervention? She has been crafting nonstop for days in a row. Okay, it has been really, really hot for days in a row, but still. NOTHING is getting finished and she just keeps picking up yarns and starting new projects when she isn’t fusing down little pieces of fabric for the quilts. HELP!!!
I’m pretty sure that I need an intervention here.
Also, some tuna would be nice!!
This is Hannah, signing off.
Notes from the Mother of Cats:
There is a giant octopus that I hope to knit in the blue yarns: Opus
Did you want a few glimmers? Check out this picture of the moon and a baby bunny…
I’ve also been reading a lot while sheltering indoors away from the heat, but that is another post. 🙂
It has been a week. I had some high stakes (for me) heart testing last Wednesday to see if my pulmonary arterial hypertension has advanced. Since I am already being treated fairly aggressively for PAH, an increase in pressures would be bad news. Nope. Pressures were normal. That would be a huge “YAY!!” everyone. Of course, it also means that there is something else going on that is causing my shortness of breath, but for the time being I’m happy and seeing glimmers everywhere.
This was the moon a few days ago. Glimmer.There was this bloom on my favorite rose bush.And my birdfeeder is seeing lots of action!
I’ve been making lots of progress on my knitting, too, since I’ve been staying inside due to the heat and the smoke of wildfires in our state.
I finished my Cloudbreak Tee, cast on a shawl for a knit-a-long that I am doing with friends, and bought some yarn so I can knit the Tabby Road mystery knit-a-long that starts at the end of the month. Did you want some links for these fabulous yarny projects?
I know that it looks like I am in a pink phase (and I kind of am…) but I want to let you know that I bought the Hey Mewed yarn kit from Miss Babs that will be greys and blues.
Did I look for a pink kit. Yes. Yes, I did. I wanted all the colors in the graphic, but finally settled for the sedate Hey Mewed. I smile every time I think of knitting a Beatles themed shawl on a mystery knit-a-long tour (magical!!) that is being run by snarky, flamethrower carrying Sharon from Security. You know, Casapinka’s cat with the questionable attitude, original spelling, and outrageous spunk. I totally need a mystery adventure with this cat!!!!
Do you see what I’m dealing with here at home? Mateo hasn’t figured out snark yet.
I should be kinder to Mateo. His every move on the catio is judged by this squirrel…
So, that was my week. Medical testing, knitting, wildlife (and moon) watching, and some reading on the side. Our heat wave will continue all week, so I should get a lot done while I wait for my doctors to decide what’s next. I’ve been assured that they are actively considering options, and I can hardly wait to hear what is next.
Okay, I am kind of in scleroderma purgatory, but hey… I have the glimmers!!
Yes, this is a bunny that has decided to hang out in an empty pot on my deck right outside the catio. Mateo is beside himself.
Choose to be happy!
I almost forgot this huge glimmer. The bald eagle eaglets, Sandy and Luna, have returned to the nest for yummy fish meals and to spend time together. It makes my heart swell to see them sleeping side by side in the nest after a day flying around. In the days to come they will learn how to catch their own fish.
You can watch them yourself at the Big Bear Valley site online.
I live in the state of Colorado, which is in the western part of the United States. We are in deep drought here, and it has been hot. There are several, very serious wildfires burning to the south and west of where I live, and I am in the smoke plume. The light outside is… strange. The Rocky Mountains, just west of where I live, can no longer be seen. The strangest effect is the moon.
That crazy red cast of the moon is caused by smoke. Last week was the Strawberry Moon, but here in the area where I live, it was the Blood Red Moon.
Every day another air quality alert is issued: Unhealthy for Sensitives Groups. I’ve been staying indoors with the cats and my air purifier, happily crafting for days. This is what I’ve gotten done over the last week.
I’ve been assembling an art quilt this week that required fusing precut pieces of fabric together to make motifs that are later assembled onto a background to make the larger quilt block.
This the first block of the quilt. Only 5 more to go…
Can you see the individual elements on the finished block? The stuff in the middle is laundry that will be hung on wash line hung between trees that will appear in the future as more of the blocks get done. Do you see the tuxedo cat with the laundry? Obviously, this cat is the one hanging the laundry out, and there will be clothes pins involved eventually. Tuxedo cats are such great help, right? Of course, Hannah was right there the whole time I was working on the quilt block, helping tremendously.
Hannah: The Mother of Cats is so lucky to have me helping her!! More tuna, please…
In addition to the quilting, I also made a lot of progress on my Cloudbreak sweater. I have finished the first sleeve and I plan to cast on the second one as soon as this post goes up. No sleeve island here!!
I spent some time with my rigid heddle loom on a new scarf that I am really liking. The yarn is mostly grey with a little strip of color in it. Look at how fun it is as a woven cloth!!
It has been a pretty productive week! I’m concentrating on the knitting this week so I can get that sweater done as I’ve signed up for a knit-along at a local yarn shop in town and I feel I should reduce the number of works in progress before I cast on that big shawl. Maybe there will be some sewing…
I have been going out onto the catio with the cats in the evenings because you can only expect cats to stay indoors for just so long when there are BIRDS and SQUIRRELS and BUNNIES out there. This week, just for fun, I added a string of fairy lights to the cat netting that makes the walls of the catio. Look at how fun these are!!! We usually sit out there every evening until the kitty lights come on; that’s how we saw the blood moon.
What else happened this week? The baby eagles that I watch left the nest last week (one FELL OUT and accidentally fledged, and the other flew off the next day), spent a couple of days learning how to fly well as their parents fed them, and returned to the nest to hang out together late last week. Yay Sandy and Luna! They are hanging out together now, flying around in the vicinity of the nest while the parents continue to deliver food, mostly FISH!! These eaglets love their fish! Eventually they will learn to catch their own and become independent, but for now I’m still following them in their adventures.
Speaking of adventures, Mateo got his tummy shaved this week, his sides trimmed down, and has been combed every single day no matter what he says. Now every trace of the winter coat is gone, and he is sporting a sleek summer coat. Gosh, look at that white patch on his chest. As it turns out the CoalBear is actually a little MoonBear.
Why does Mateo look a little sad? I had just finished shaving his tummy when I took the picture. Poor guy. Here’s a picture of him in his winter coat so you can see how much fur has come off
He’s a whole new cat, right?!! In the winter I tend to forget that he is actually black under all of that floof!
It is a sad time here, don’t get me wrong. The lawns are all dead (drought) and the county just sent me information on how to prepare for an emergency evacuation in case of wildfire. Fireworks were banned this year. I am keeping the car full of gas. Resources from cities are being send to battle wildfires. I sew for some of the emergency response agencies in my region, and this week I plan to sew a pile of fabric tote bags to go to an agency that will stuff them full of essentials to deliver to people displaced by the fires. Keep us in your thoughts.
I woke up Thursday morning feeling… not well. I was walking funny, throwing up (I HATE when that happens) and forget eating. I think that Hannah ate my breakfast for me, and I know she ate my cookies!! I felt too bad to even go out on the catio for more than a few minutes. The Mother of Cats called the vet to see if they could take me.
Nope. They were drowning in emergencies. They gave the Mother of Cats some numbers to call of emergency vets (I hate the vet!!) and she started calling. Nope, nope, nope. I went to hide in the downstairs shower while she figured things out, and then in the afternoon she found a place to take me. She loaded me in the carrier and went to get her purse.
Ha. I climbed out! The side zipper was open. She tracked me down and reloaded me. Ha. I may be sick, but I can move fast if the zipper jams…
Finally, she got me into the car, and we headed off to the horrible Vet ER. THERE WERE DOGS THERE!!!! We waited, and finally I got some xrays. The Mother of Cats was told that I needed emergency surgery (AGAIN!!!), and that we needed to go to ANOTHER ER to have that done. They took more xrays there, and then told the Mother of Cats that I was too unstable for surgery. I got this horrible IV needle in my arm and they gave me lots of fluids.
Hannah: Like, this is a surprise? I already knew he was unstable…
The Mother of Cats went home for the night and LEFT ME ALONE!!! The next morning, she came back and sat with me in the treatment room with all of the people and dogs and machines and everything. It was so scary.
Look at this horrible cage. I was hiding in a corner until the Mother of Cats came to sit with me.
I got an ultrasound at noon and look at what they did to me! All of my beautiful fur got ruined and I have goop stuck in my fur. I smell really funny, and what is up with this horrible tube going into my arm!!!!!!
My fur is gone!
Guess what, the intestinal blockage was also gone! My intestines are pretty sore and I may have to have a special diet for a while, but they kept me for a few more hours to push fluids and then I got to go home again.
I smelled so bad Hannah hissed at me all night!
The Mother of Cats says I’m getting a haircut next year so this doesn’t happen again, and she is throwing away some of my toys that have strings on them. Life is soooo unfair. Why is everyone being so mean. At least Hannah has stopped growling at me…
Notes from the Mother of Cats:
I told Mateo that he is getting shaved next summer and will wear funky little outfits from now on! The clinic where he finally ended up told me that he was saved by the fluid bolus that they pushed at the first emergency vet facility. Once they got him, they could see that things were improving a little on the x-rays, and since he was still very dehydrated and had developed a heart murmur they held him overnight for the ultrasound. That turned out to be the right call.
Do I have more grey hair. Yes, yes I do.
While all of this was going on I also got some knitting done. Look at my Cloudbreak Tee.
I added a couple of inches to the body before I started the lace section, and I think that was a good decision. The cast off for the body was a sewn one that took 2.5 hours to do, but the result is very nice. See that little bit of yarn that I am holding? That is how much yarn was left when I finished sewing. I WON AT YARN CHICKEN, PEOPLE!!!!
Yeah. Life has been busy lately. Last week I managed three appointments for testing and office visits, and then I visited three different Kaiser facilities to acquire the new prescriptions. All of this was done while keeping an eye on the barometric pressure; for half of the visits I had to wear my oxygen. I’m a little sad, more than a little exhausted, and somewhat concerned that all the test results are pointing at my heart. Bad heart, bad. It isn’t quite clear what is going on, so my cardiologist is systemically eliminating possibilities as we edge closer and closer to a return to the cath lab. Oh, boy.
Here is the thing about going back on oxygen. My portable oxygen concentrator only supports me for about three hours. For the most part, I am now homebound. Sounds sad, right. I have been loading up on happy crafting projects that I can do at home, but it is hard to face the isolation of going back into virtual lockdown again.
Of course, I’m not really alone. The cats are great companions.
Then my niece contacted me to ask if I would like to join her is a collaborative writing project online. Yes!! Yes, I would. You guys, we will be writing a collaborative book in the epistolary novel format. What a gift that she came up with this right now!
Then a friend asked me if I would like to join her in a shawl KAL being sponsored by a local yarn shop in town. Yes. Yes, I would love to do that with you!!
That bright pink yarn to the right in this picture will become the shawl.
Then my cousin, the fabulous quilter who produced this Rainbow Zebra Quilt for my support group mentioned that she has the patterns for the quilt that I just ordered to start working on. She is considering joining me in the sewing of the quilt. How fun! We will be doing it together even though we live at different sides of the state I live in.
The Wind in the Whiskers Quilt Kit is from Stitchin’ Heaven, and the package is out for delivery as I type this post. My cousin is still considering hunting through her fabric stash, or if she should order the identical fabrics from the shop where I bought the kit, but we are almost certainly going to launch the joint sew a quilt together project. Isn’t that great?
In the meantime, I have been knitting away on my new Cloudbreak Tee. Look at my progress!!
So here I am, stuck at home connected to my oxygen concentrator machine, waiting for my cardiologist to contact me about the results of the emergency echocardiogram that I had last Friday, chilling out with the cats, working on my computer, and knitting on my sweater that uses the happiest color yarn out there. Alone, but connected to other people who reached out to me, connecting to me though things that I love to do, keeping me in the world that they still are able to move about freely in.
That that, scleroderma!!
Hannah: I’d like to connect to that moth up there!!
PS: How lucky am I? I have already been contacted by three people who are offering to drive me to the cath lab appointment if it happens, and another person is going to go with me to my next cardiologist appointment if things don’t sort themselves out soon.
PPS: Just as I was unboxing my new overlock machine, getting ready to sew fabric tote bags, the mayor of my city posted on Facebook that he was spending Friday nights at an innovative center that is designed to move people from homelessness to employed (and housed) independence. Here is an article about what he wrote. I contacted the head of my community service crafting group, and she is setting up a meeting to see what we can do to help. I’m pretty sure that they can use some of the fabric totes with matching zipper pouches…
I’m trying to swat the phone in the Mother of Cat’s hand in this shot…
The last couple of weeks have really been busy. Wait until I tell you about all of the stuff that is going on around Casa Mother of Cats. Where should I start…
Look at that baby bunny!!!
The new brick entryway to the bunny tunnel is working great. Sure, I don’t get to hang right over the opening so I can lunge at the net the second I see the tip of a bunny ear, but the tradeoff is… the little guys aren’t that afraid of me now. They come right up to the edge of the brick entrance and I get quality bunny watching time. I still think that I would have more fun chasing them, but the Mother of Cats is so mean to me…
Then this happened today! This squirrel decided to come right into the catio, so of course I had to charge up the corner post to meet him, right? Who knew that squirrels had a secret death wish desire to play with me? The Mother of Cats made me get down, but then the squirrel ran around on the ROOF looking for a way in while Hannah and I watched. Come on in squirrel, I can show you some fun tricks with my murder mittens…
Finally the squirrel moved on and the Mother of Cats brought us into the house. Why does she interfere with all of my fun? I mean she literally chases all of my potential playmates meals away before I can play with them.
Okay, enough of the adventures with stuff outside. I should mention some of the other things that have been going on around here. The Mother of Cats is knitting like crazy on her latest sweater, and Hannah really helps her with that. Look at all of the progress that she has made!! She also likes the octopus stitch markers! Do I get to chew on them? Again… no.
One of the Mother of Cats’ friends gave her two Cattasaurus donuts for us to play in. WE LOVE THESE THINGS!!!! We both play/sleep in and on these guys for a part of the day. I especially like to drag myself around in circles inside the grey one, and look at Hannah snoozing on hers!
I’m feeling pretty good about life these days. Great wildlife hanging around. New toys to snooze in. Some special hairball support (whatever that is…) cookies to eat. And… of yeah!! Wait until you see the new flag that is flying in the catio!!!!!
That’s me!!! Hannah is lucky that I share my catio with her!!
Well, that’s all for now.
I’m going to bug Hannah for awhile. Laters.
Hannah: Noooo…
Notes from the Mother of Cats.
Life has been busy lately. The Scleroderma Walk was last weekend, and I really wanted to participate with my team the Rainbow Zebras. The walk was clearly longer than I could manage, so I finally bought a lightweight mobility scooter that I could put in and out of the car by myself. Check this out!
She was gifted to a friend in a care home after the walk. Chicken, get busy and support!!
This is Scleroderma Awareness Month, and trying to represent, my scleroderma decided to get pushy with the symptoms. What symptoms are these you ask? I’m still dealing with chest discomfort, shortness of breath, dizziness, edema, a partridge in a pear tree, … It is exhausting. In the last 7 days I have been to Urgent Care, the Emergency Room, and two specialist appointments. The moral of the story is… don’t answer the phone from your medical provider if you are too short of breath to talk. They tend to panic. After all of that testing and running around, they found… NOTHING wrong. Of course. Rainbow zebra here. It is something associated with my scleroderma, of course, and all of the normal causes of the symptoms like I am experiencing are not in play. (Can you hear a zebra braying in the background?) Thank heavens my cardiologist will be back in the office next week and maybe something that can actually HELP will be done.
Did I buy more yarn after all of this?
YES!!!
I also bought a new sewing machine and the kit to sew this very cute quilt. Hey… they said I have to stay home on oxygen, so I need to get in essential supplies, right?
The Mother of Cats finished her scarf on the rigid heddle loom (I helped with the weaving) and then cut the fabric off. This scarf is sooo soft and squishy. I wanted the Mother of Cats to give it to me for my bed, but nope. She kept it for herself. This is what it looked like before she finished twisting all the little fringe strings.
Personally I like the strings in the fringe, but the Mother of Cats twisted them all up to become tidy finished fringe last night.
After the Mother of Cat got the scarf off the rigid heddle loom she sat down and concentrated on finishing all of the weaving on the floor loom. Then she cut it off the loom!!! Oh, that was really, really exciting. I just love the smell of wool, don’t you? I moved right in while the Mother of Cats was trying to get the woven items separated from each other. She was using a rotary cutter, but I am fearless!! Also, very spoiled.
The final woven items were two placemats and three table runners. Once again, PERFECT for my bed, but no! The finished items are put away except for one that is now in the living room. I would sleep on it there, but there is a STUPID PLANT in the middle. Why does the Mother of Cats do these things?
The other woven piece that I think should be mine (hello… it is pink!!) is the table runner woven with silk/bamboo. So shiny. So nice to roll around on. So put away in the closet where I can’t get to it…
This is both sides of the runner. Pretty cool, right. I kind of like both sides so it is hard to decide. The Mother of Cats says that this is a feature of overshot weaving, but I’m like… whatever. Can I have tuna now?
The Mother of Cats was really excited to get the rigid heddle looms warped up again, but she got sick on Sunday, and she is still lying around like a big slug ignoring my needs. It’s just some coughy thing, but she sure does sleep a lot, and there isn’t much of anything getting done around here. Hey, Mother of Cats! We need to get weaving again.
Guess I’ll catch a nap myself. Can you tell that I am dreaming of TUNA!!!
Notes from the Mother of Cats:
I really gained a lot of confidence in my weaving by taking an online overshot class from The Handweaving Academy. There are so many little subtle things that make it challenging when starting out, but I gained so much practical knowledge along with technical skills that I’m thinking of ordering warp yarn in a dark purple color for more placemats. This will be fun!!!
Some of the changes that I made were pretty basic, but also game changers. Like… label your floor treadles! I wrote on scotch tape that can be easily removed. Other helpful techniques included the mechanics of using two shuttles at once. There are floating warp threads at the edges of the woven piece, and I learned how to use them effectively to create a smooth selvedge. Well… for me, that it pretty smooth. I had learned about “tromp as writ” years ago, but now I understand. I understand how to convert my weaving to adjust patterns to my (rising shed) Baby Wolf loom. I can figure out the treadling sequence from a draft, and I know how to convert it from one pattern type to another. I feel like a real weaver again!!!
The blue marl yarn in the scarf is Marla by Manos del Uraguay; it is a DK weight yarn that is very soft and squishy.
The yarn in the table runner is Noro Silk Garden sock yarn, another DK weight yarn.
The orchid is one of my plants that is reblooming from last year.
I’m considering a doubleweave class next! I already bought this book…
It is nice and warm outside almost every day now and I get to head on out to the catio to check on the bunny. He’s still there!!! I would like to stay out all day but the Mother of Cats forces me to COME BACK INSIDE after she makes her breakfast and morning latte (She tells Hannah that she needs to learn how to make a latte, but does she pay attention? No. Hannah just does whatever she wants, and she never gets into trouble like I do…), and then she usually doesn’t let me outside again. Why is she so mean!!! I watch the bunny from the front window, but it isn’t the same…
The Mother of Cats has been spending a lot of her time weaving downstairs on the big loom. This loom is a little bit scary. She stomps on the floor peddles and pulls the big swingy reed thing towards her while throwing yarny shuttles back and forth at the same time that crashy parts are going up and down. Do I hang out with the loom? No. I do not. I do feel like I should show off what she has been making.
After the Mother of Cats had finished the homework weaving she dug around in her yarn stash and made a woven piece from some sock yarn that she bought years and years ago.
Look at that yarn! Years ago she made those socks with the elephant on them, and last week the rest of the yarn was used on the loom to make a table runner. Personally, I like the socks better, but the Mother of Cats likes the new runner too. It is cool, right? The Mother of Cats was so excited by the look of that yarn she headed back to the stash and got MORE yarn.
This yarn, which is called Silk Garden, is thicker than the first yarn. Wouldn’t that yarn make a nice cat toy? Maybe some knitted mice? The Mother of Cats completely ignored my needs and wove another table runner. She likes the way it looks so much she went back to the yarn stash again and got some pink silk yarn. Yep. You Guessed it. ANOTHER table runner is now getting woven on the loom.
Hannah likes this pink shiny weaving more than I do. Pink is kind of her favorite color.
Hannah: Pink looks nice with my fur!!
I do have to mention, the Mother of Cats has been kind of crazy with the pink lately. She went out and bought pink plants. Then she bought pink shoes. Then she bought a pink cricket. Seriously, crickets are for playing with!!! Crazy Mother of Cats, she has it with the plants in the indoor garden.
The Mother of Cats says that the pink makes her happy, so I guess I have to put up with all of this pink silliness.
I’m trying to think really hard about what else has been going on around here. There has been some knitting. Boring. She has made some more hats for the infusion centers. Also boring. She went out and left us several times this month for meet-ups with her friends and some doctor visits. Also very, very boring. I guess I can show off the weaving on her rigid heddle loom:
This yarn is very soft, but not as soft as my fur!
I guess that’s all that I want to talk about. It is about time for the Mother of Cats to feed us our special night time tuna, and then I’m going to make her play with me for a while.
Hannah: I just want the tuna!
Bye for now,
Mateo
Notes from the Mother of Cats:
The first color changing yarn that I used on the loom is Noro Silk Garden Sock Solo, a single ply fingering weight yarn. I wasn’t sure how the cotton warp would work with the wool blend yarn, but it looked great.
The second Noro yarn is Silk Garden Sock yarn, a DK weight single ply yarn that is twice as heavy as the first Noro yarn. It wove in great, and I liked the look of the more solid color blocks.
That pink yarn is also a DK weight called Bamboo Silk (silk/bamboo mix) that was hand dyed by a weaving shop north of me. I’ve had this yarn for years: really special, it was hard to find a good use for it. I’m liking it in this woven piece. I plan to put another warp on the loom in the same threading pattern, but this time in a purple colored cotton, and then I can weave another piece with the same pink yarn. I can’t wait to see how that turns out!
Don’t you like the pink cricket? My new rigid heddle loom is a cricket made by the Schacht Spindle Company. Of course it needs a pink cricket to keep it company!
I’ve been reading convoluted mystery books lately. The two that I am reading right now are set in very different situations, but I am loving the many technical details, cultural themes, and foreign settings that are similar in a spooky way.
Imagine living in a time far in the future. You are the pilot attached to an archeological group recovering artifacts from ancient civilizations on distant planets that abruptly disappeared. What happened? Can a lost alien language be decoded in time to understand these ancient beings who have left behind their poetry, religion, and relics before the catastrophic mechanism that killed them returns? It’s an interstellar crime of cosmic proportions, and time is running out. The key to solving much of this is… a printing press.
Or, almost as foreign as the ancient aliens and their lost civilization, is London 1667. It is the year following the Great Fire, and political intrigue is thicker than the smoke of that great conflagration. The city is being rebuilt, but refugee camps remain. There are children afflicted with scrofula, a form of tuberculosis that presents in horrible swollen tumors grown from lymph nodes in the neck. There is murder. There are royal directives, and machinations by important people to secure power. Nothing makes sense, but everything is connected. There is a printing press involved. Of course.
I’m having fun reading both of these at the same time.
The other big event that happened. That would be Rare Disease Day on February 28th.
I decided to not write a whole post about it this year, but I wanted to make a point or two. There I am, looking much better than I deserve to, flashing my zebra shirt. The decal on my car tells the story. Even though I am told often that “I look great!”, and I suspect that some of those people think that I am faking for attention, the reality of scleroderma is that it is… complicated. I take 22 pills a day in an ongoing effort to slow the progression of the damage being caused by my disease, and almost all of my organs are being impacted. I now have serious lung and heart complications, but to be truthful, the impact to my digestive tract is what causes me the most grief. Scleroderma, especially the systemic form, is rare; the complications that it brings are even more rare.
Systemic sclerosis, the type of scleroderma that I have, like many other rare diseases, is invisible, but the struggle is real.
Whenever you can, support the zebras that you find in your life.
I’m in the part of my new sweater (another Weekender Crew) that is just stockinette all the way with a slipped stitch every now and then. I’m alternating skeins so I don’t get too much pooling, but the work is still… kind of mindless. Not mentally challenging. Okay, I am bored. No creativity in sight here, even though I want to get the sweater done… eventually. To make things worse we are experiencing unusually warm weather here in the Denver area and I’m not wearing any of my sweaters. I stuffed the sweater into its bin, parked it on a shelf, and started on some small products.
I decided to start on the mitts to match the grey/dusty purple sweater that I just upcycled. Yay. Let’s do mitts, kitties!!!
I decided to make a mitt that offered some options. It has a ribbed top that should go under the lace on the sleeve okay, and then a little panel of lace to match the ones on the body of the sweater. At the edge by my hand is a picot edge that matches those of the lace on the sweater. Cute, right? Sometimes I want a mitt that comes way down over my hand, almost to my knuckles, so I didn’t sew down the picot edge and knitted a long inner lining that can be pulled out. The final bind off is I-cord, giving a smooth finish to the bottom of the mitt. Yay! I like this mitt a lot. Did I cast on to start the second one right away? Well… no… that would be boring, right?
I pulled out the cat arm warmers because they are kind of the poster child mitt for NOT BORING, right? Over the last three days I got those little mice knitted in, and then I did the paws. Yikes. The paws required 4 colors of yarn for several rows. NOT BORING!!!! I learned a few things about yarn management while working on these, and in a nutshell, the most important one is to cut the yarn off the ball so you have a length of color that you can easily pull through tangles with the other colors. It is a lot easier to catch floats when you have a manageable length of yarn with no ball of yarn in sight, too. The knitting was really slow and kind of a nightmare until I figured that all out, but the last half of the paws went pretty quickly. Do you like the paws?
They look that way because that is what Hannah’s paws look like! Cutest toe beans ever!!!
Like everyone else on the planet I have been reflecting on the last year (thank heavens it is finally over) and thinking about plans for the next one (goals are good, right?) It’s a lot, and it definitely involves lots of yarn and books. As I planned this post I thought about what has been going on lately in my life and the world around me, and I finally thought about a plant that I brought in from outdoors this fall. It was a beautiful bougainvillea when I brought it in, bushy with lush green foliage and not a bloom in sight. I thought about leaving it outside but I finally dragged it into the dining room in front of a large window. Over the next few weeks every single leaf on the plant fell off. “Are you kidding me,” I asked the plant. “One little shock to your system and you give up the ghost?” Yes, I do talk to my plants.
The plant has replied by putting out new growth and blooms on every single little branch. It is literally covered with the tiny green buds of new growth, and the blooms, just now starting to grow out, are going to be something else. This plant is going to look amazing in just a couple of weeks.
There is a lesson here, somewhere.
May you all have an amazing New Year.
PS: I bought a new loom!!! Also, dysautonomia continues. May I present to you Crazy Heart 2026.
I caught covid for the first time last summer, and I continued to test positive for almost a month. What a mess. As I slowly recovered, I simultaneously felt better symptom-wise than I had in quite a long time while also developing new symptoms that are now creating struggle.
That sounds kind of crazy, and I probably should unpack things a little. Let’s start with the better, okay?
Hannah: I wonder what she is thinking about all the time…
Last October I had a terrible flare of symptoms that caused extreme joint pain, fatigue, brain fog, digestive issues, and… I WAS UNABLE TO KNIT FOR MONTHS!!!! I struggled to read. It was hard to do even basic things. My GI tract was in full revolt. I began to wear knee braces every day, pulled out the walker, and pruned my diet down to a few reliable items that were safe to consume (lactose free yogurt, I’m talking to you!!) I began to lose weight at a steady clip of a pound a week.
The hand under the hot pack was last year, and you can see the damage that was left behind on my current hand on the right. Last year my rheumatologist tested me for lots of things and I don’t have gout, or pseudogout, or rheumatoid arthritis, or any other thing except common osteoarthritis: no signs of inflammatory arthritis. I thought that was crazy talk at the time, but it’s hard to argue with negative test results even though I feel like I am dealing with obvious inflammation (swollen joints too sore to touch, right?). Anyway, after a year of struggling to knit or even type, my symptoms went away as I recovered from covid and I have been knitting up a storm (well, sweaters, actually, but you understand what I mean). It has been great. I can knit all day if I want. I can literally stay in bed all day, knitting happily along, ordering in groceries and enjoying my books… in bed. I am full of creative energy and am making tons of plans that involve my sewing machine and the looms. I’m wanting to buy another loom (that I can use in bed). Really, things are going great. Fabulous. I’ve even restarted my physical therapy routine, and my mobility has improved.
Oh… why am I in bed? Well… in the wake of covid I have developed worst dysautonomia. I struggle to control my body temperature. My blood pressure crashes when I eat. My heart rate goes bonkers without warning. I’m too cold all day long, and then I can’t sleep because I’m too hot. “I’m so sorry,” said one of my doctors. “This is very difficult to treat or control.” Fabulous. I do want to point out that many of my symptoms are greatly improved, my latest lung testing showed even more improvement, and I feel stronger than I have in years. The hope is that I will get better in time, and in the meantime, the cats are happy to hang out with me as I fuss around the house.
I was just sitting and reading when I got very dizzy suddenly and sure enough, my stupid heart decided to go into overdrive. Another adventure in dizziness caused me to check my blood pressure; for me, that is very low pressure. After another 2 hours I was back up to 128/72 and feeling more like myself. My doctor has advised me to just eat little snacks all day and to drink lots of water if I eat an actual meal.
Scleroderma, this is not funny at all! Oh, well. At least I can now knit and read…
I do want to back up to my bad-boy hands that gave me such a terrible time for most of the year. When I saw my rheumatologist in November she checked my x-rays from last year and then took a long look at my wrists and knees. My wrists are significantly worse than they were a year ago (but causing minimal problems at the moment… go figure) and she decided to order up some specialized testing to take a better look at the joints. Today I drove to downtown Denver to get specialized ultrasound imaging of those wrists. The technician was just wonderful, and she explained what we were seeing on the screen as she stopped to take pictures. There was a lot of obvious damage, fluid in the joints, and calcium deposits in tendons. “You’ve really been going through a lot,” she said. Finally, some validation. It was hard to not feel hopeful as I walked out of the clinic. On the way back home, I stopped at my favorite yarn store for a little yarn therapy action, and that was when the day turned into a “Thoughts on the Night of the Last New Moon” post.
In a nutshell, this is my situation. I feel better, and I am happy, but I am dealing with significant difficulties because my autonomic nervous system is refusing to behave itself. There is no easy fix. My joints are a major ongoing problem with no end in sight, because I can’t do many of the traditional remedies because of my scleroderma. I want answers! I want cookies! I want yarn!!
I walked into the yarn store.
The first thing that I see is a stack of my favorite cookies!!! Yay! I put four boxes into my shopping bag.
Then I saw great yarn that I needed to have. Yep. Into the shopping bag they went with reckless abandon. I want these yarns; my stash has been feeling a little peckish. Obviously, it also needed to be fed. Then my phone toned the sound that told me an incoming text had just arrived, so I sat down on a loveseat right in the middle of the DK weight yarn section and read the message: the radiologist had already read the imaging from my wrist ultrasounds and the results were available.
Active synovitis of the joints in my wrist. Inflammatory arthritis. Ironic, since I’m feeling pretty good at the moment with minimal pain. I wonder what that wrist would have looked like a year ago. It is such a huge relief to finally have a lab result that validates what I have been telling my doctors (and experiencing) for years. There is value in sticking to your guns and asking for more testing. Evidently this type of imaging is new, and it identified the problem that the standard imaging techniques failed to see. I don’t know what can be done to help me, but the relief is immense.
As I drove home, buoyed by the cookie haul, the shiny new skeins of yarn, and a sense of success and validation, I took a different route, passing by a large lake just south of my home. In the sky above me a flock of white pelicans wheeled in the sky, huge white birds with black bands on their wings. My heart soared with them.
More little glimmers:
Through the entire outing my stupid autonomic system behaved itself and I didn’t get dizzy even once!! 🙂
I delivered chemo hats to the infusion center at the facility where I had the ultrasound done. I have a little collapsible wagon that I use to roll the bags of hats to the department were they need to go. People laughed and joked with me as I rolled through the hallways (one lady insisted on pulling the wagon for me on my way in), adding to the overall good feelings of the day.
Remember me mentioning last spring that I was following some bald eagles in Big Bear, California online? Every day I checked the eagle cam to see if the chicks, Sunny and Gizmo, had taken their first flight yet. This week the parent eagles, hard at work preparing the nest for the upcoming chick season, were visited by 2 juvenile bald eagles who in high probability (because of the behavior all the eagles are exhibiting) are their girls from last season: Sunny and Gizmo. It is just wonderful to see them back even though the parents aren’t going to let them come near the nest much longer.
It really is the last new moon of the year tonight.
The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is zooming past earth tonight. It has been fascinating to follow over the last few months as its behavior has led to loads of speculation and lots of data collection. Safe travels, little guy.
This isn’t a glimmer, not really. We are in the middle of a high wind event that has forced communities to shut down west of me and the power has been cut to those residents. I feel grateful that there hasn’t been a fire since the risk is enormous at the moment, but I feel bad for everyone impacted by this. Thankfully, we are also experiencing record breaking heat.
I fell and injured my right knee last summer. It still hasn’t healed, and it is getting a MRI next month. Fabulous.
I am planning another post about the yarn and knitting.
Don’t you think that I should treat myself to another simple loom that will be easy on my wrists?
Mateo: Don’t you think that my silver ruff is a glimmer?
Yarn, Books & Roses 