Knitting – Page 40 – Yarn, Books & Roses

Wednesday: Six Inches of Knitting Weather Arrives!

Sadly, cats do not knit.

Cat in Snow

The View from Here: One Year of Scleroderma

It’s been a year since I was first diagnosed with scleroderma. Actually, it has been decided that I have the form of scleroderma called limited systemic sclerosis (the disease formerly known as CREST). Sounds kind of fraught, huh. That’s because it is; no matter what I think I know about my condition this week, by next week things will probably change. It has been quite a journey this year and now that all the dust has settled from the latest rounds of medical tests I wanted to share my thoughts.

There is no question that the first months after my diagnosis were filled with waves of horror and grief. At first I was just stunned to discover that I might lose the use of my hands. Then it dawned on me that my ability to live independently might become problematic; I needed to make plans to activate a support system for myself at some time in the future. Eventually I found out about the fatal complications and the high mortality rate. Well, shoot. During this time I became a driven knitter: endless pairs of fingerless mitts rolled off my needles.

CARD — My sister, who has a somewhat warped sense of humor, sent me this card about the time that I learned about my risk for pulmonary hypertension, an often fatal complication of limited systemic sclerosis.

Yet, it has been a year and I am still here. I sailed through the medical tests and none of the frightening medical complications have manifested themselves. My lungs and heart are fine (huge woohoo!!). My GI tract hasn’t gotten worse. My hands are very swollen and the skin is getting hard (one of the hallmarks of scleroderma is hard skin that forms due to lots of collagen deposition and scarring; my arms and legs are getting hard too), but they work just fine and are actually much better than they should be. My rheumatologist has advised me to knit as much as possible; what a hardship! Other symptoms have improved and I have transitioned onto a battery of drugs that have good track records for improving the quality of life and increasing survival rates in patients with my condition.

So, what have I learned this year? Here is my reflective collection of observations as I look back from the one-year viewpoint:

People are more important then things. Period.
..but they just don’t get chronic conditions and they tend to underestimate the seriousness of conditions that they can’t directly observe. In general people on crutches or using oxygen activate concern, but if you have flaming gastritis, the dizzy wobblies, and your muscles are on strike it’s easy for them to adopt a dismissive attitude. <sigh>
Medical personnel can be appallingly insensitive. Last week the technician doing my lung scan mentioned that I had a lot of doctors because my disease was really rare; it was important that the doctors get to learn as much from me as possible. Good lord, I wondered. Maybe she was raised by wolves…
As a corollary of the above observation, I have also discovered that I can’t assume that the medical personnel that I come in contact with actually know about my condition. One nurse thought that “systemic sclerosis” was “multiple sclerosis”. A doctor gave me a pep talk about how other conditions were worse because some of those patients actually can die from their disease. (“Did you want to hit him?” asked my rheumatologist…) One thing I can count on, however, is that they will put me into some scary machine to look for a possible blood clot. What is up with all the blood clot hunts?
I do have some wonderful doctors! Because of crazy interactions with random medical people I have decided that it is best to be proactive: last month I put this tag onto my keys and the little card in my wallet has the business cards of my internist and rheumatologist stapled to it.
There are few things as empowering as discovering that you won’t live forever. Why sweat the small stuff when you are facing down the long odds? My drugs have a small chance of a fatal brain infection? Whatever. Hand them over, Sparky, I am on board! I never worry about money (bad when I’m in a yarn store) or running out of gas, and I am taking more risks than I was comfortable with before. I mean, what is the worst thing that can happen? This week I figured out how to identify all of the electrical circuits of the house and rewired and installed a new doorbell. I didn’t worry (more than once) about getting knocked on my butt by an electrical mishap. Ha! In my younger days I hated to even change light bulbs…
Elizabeth Zimmerman was right. “Knit on with confidence and hope, through all crises.” is a motto that I can live with.
No, I won’t be skydiving! I’m not that risk-seeking. 🙂
It is so much easier to be happy than sad. Plant flowers. Read books. Knit like the wind! Chase bees. Go to lunch with friends (and get dessert!). Watch meteor showers and be sure to catch the Super Blood Moon. Talk to strangers in bookstores and coffee shops. Be kind whenever you can. Never miss an opportunity to take a picture of a great sunset (or a cat). It is really, really easy to be happy, even when you’re in a crazy machine that is looking for blood clots. 🙂

I finally went to my first scleroderma support group meeting a couple of months ago. I’d never met another person with scleroderma; it was a little extreme but good. Like me, they all suffer from cold hands. Unlike me, most of them also talked about the struggle to manage pain in their hands, and I could see that several of them had limited use of their hands because the skin was so tight. Remember all of those fingerless mitts I knitted during the sad times? I think that I have found a home for them.

Cold weather ready: socks and indoor plants

The October 2015 Socks are done!

October Socks — These are the Om Shanti Bed Socks by Alice Yu. That cool yarn is Serenity 20 by Zen Yarn Garden. They are extremely comfy and the snug little ankles keep them on my feet overnight. Perfect for the sleeper with cold feet. (Yep, that’s me. Thanks Raynaud’s!) Here are the project notes on Ravelry.

If you are interested in the history of these socks, here are the related posts:

The socks were started around Halloween
and the first sock was finished a few days later.

I am almost caught up with the resolution socks; last night I shopped the stash to pick the yarn for the November Socks and am torn between two different patterns. Next week I’ll make the decision, wind the yarn and cast on. Here’s the problem: I found a wonderful blue yarn, but there is also this gold/purple/brown yarn that looks like the perfect color for November… The blue yarn works for the pattern I planned to knit, but the autumn colored yarn is so perfect that perhaps I should give it and a cute lace patterned sock a try… Maybe I should make two pairs of socks this month. 🙂

I worked like a maniac this week on the bed socks because it has suddenly become cold outside. We had a nice snowfall Thursday, and the last two nights have gone well below freezing. That was it; I had to bring some of the outdoor plants into the house for the winter. I went to the local Home Depot store and bought some plant grow lights for them, and with some care and rotation under the lights I hope to keep them going until next spring. Here’s the winners in the survive the winter plant lottery:

Pink daisy — The pink daisy-like plant moved into the bedroom by a window. Looks happy, doesn’t it.

Geranium — The geranium is also getting parked in front of the bedroom window where it will hopefully get enough light. I plan to let both plants visit the plant lights in my craft room a few days a week for a light boost.

Orchids and blooming plant — I pruned this plant back to about half its height and put it in front of the window in the craft room. The orchids have been doing pretty well in this location: both orchid plants bloomed for me last year. The (very cheap) wood shelf unit actually has three shelves; I bought clip-on grow lights that I can move around to give the plants light from different directions this winter to supplement the natural light.

I have more plants shoved onto the two shelves below this one but they are just too messy to show off right now. I need at least one more plant grow light to make things work, and the lower shelf plants still need to be pruned back. I’m pretty sure that the plants will drop a lot of leaves as they adjust to the lower light levels, but they should all make it and hopefully will manage to produce some winter blooms. One of the plants on the lower shelf is a rose bush that has survived indoors for three years in a row. I know he’ll make it! The pink flowering plants are also producing a lot of scent which makes me just happy. It’s like having a little piece of summer all year long.

All right winter, bring it on. I am ready!!

Wednesday Update: lots of work, very few words

I would love to do a Wordless Wednesday. It would be so cool. I think that I should set a goal for myself to work up to it slowly and to capture the best picture that displays the struggles/successes of the week. Since I didn’t do that here is an almost wordless Wednesday update of my current projects.

Om Shanti Bed Socks socks by Alice Yu. Here are the Ravelry project details.

Roving — Strips pulled from the long edge of the giant batt and rolled up ready to spin. The spinning wheel rattled his double treadles in excitement the whole time I was doing this…

Singles on bobbin — Singles spun using a supported long draw that will eventually make a fluffy 2 ply worsted weight yarn. Happy spinning wheel.

Cat on spinning chair — You wanted to spin? Whatever…

It’s raining outside and will change to snow overnight. I have the flowering plants that I want to keep inside and I am ready to ply this yarn tomorrow. Sure wish my bed socks were done. Have a great rest-of-the-week everyone.

Halloween Update: One down, two to go.

Halloween! It is also the last day of the month and I’ve been busy. Pumpkins, decorating, candy all ready to do for the trick-or-treaters, and projects. One project is done and two more are getting started. (What did you expect? It is always best to have many more WIPs than FOs…). Here’s everything in pictures.

Start of sock. — Introducing the October 2015 socks. Say hello to the Om Shanti Bed Socks by Alice Yu. I found the pattern in my copy of the book Socktopus (by Alice Yu). As you can see they are knit from the toe up. I’m using some Zen Yarn Garden Serenity 20 yarn that I found in the stash (no idea what the colorway was called…) and here are the starts of the notes on Ravelry.

Date on spinning wheel — Finally, today is my spinning wheel’s birthday. That’s right! He was born on October 31, 1996, the 10th wheel born on that day. He is a Schacht Matchless double-treadle wheel and he is just in the prime of his life.

d of b — and here is his birthday present: a giant batt that I bought last spring at the Interweave Yarn Fest. Don’t those colors look perfect for a Halloween baby?

Batt — Here is the batt unrolled. This thing is huge: 8 ounces of wool. I cannot wait to get spinning on it. I have agonized about how to approach the project and have finally decided to pull off strips of fiber the length of the batt to spin semi-worsted (long draw) and will then Navajo ply to create a round three ply yarn that maintains the color changes. I’m hoping for a light worsted weight (DK) type yarn. I want to either make a Brickless shawl or will weave a small wall hanging from it. The wheel is pretty excited about this project. Well, he should be; it’s his birthday! 🙂

That’s it. Hope you all have a great weekend. This is the end of daylight savings time here so get an extra hour to sleep and knit. Woohoo!!

End of October WIPs

My wrists are behaving again: every day it seems that I can knit a little longer. Since I got the queue organized and a lot of projects lined up I have been on fire. Since it is Wednesday I thought that I would just show off all of the knitting WIPs.

September Socks

Oh yeah. I was making a pair of socks each month this year as my New Year’s Resolution. I remember now. It is now almost the end of October, and the last time I made a sock was… July. My favorite yarn store received a big shipment of Malabrigo Rios last week and I found this:

Yarn — Isn’t this the perfect color for September? This is 100% superwash merino and the color is so rich and wonderful… I decided to make the Stepping Stones socks from the Book of Socks by Clara Parkes. The pattern is also free on Ravlery. My copy of the pattern says to use size 2 needles (with worsted yarn? Not with these wrists! I decided to use size 4 needles and the sock came out springy, wonderful, and has a good fit on my foot.

Cat with yarn — This happened while I was trying to take pictures today for this post…

The sock knit up really fast. I should have the second one done by the end of the week. I already have the October Socks ready to go. Catch-up time. 🙂

Daelyn Sweater

Shelter Yarn — I bought this Brooklyn Tweed Shelter in August while doing Yarn Along the Rockies. It is soft, cushy, and fabulous.

Mitts!!

I can’t stand it; I always have an urge to knit more mitts. It is kind of irrational as no one could possibly wear all of these, but they are just so cool and a great way to try out yarns and patterns. I’m going to have enough left over yarn from the September socks to make some mitts in the same stitch pattern. I have some exceptionally yummy cashmere blend yarn that nags at me, and then there is this hand spun that I pulled out today for another mitt project I’m dying to do (but I’m not going to talk about it now as, seriously, I think that it deserves it’s own post). Here is the yarn teaser…

Tonight is the first frost warning of the year so I brought as many of my potted flowers into the garage as I could. I know that they are running out of time, but I hate to let them die. I think that next week I will hang indoor grow lights and get some of them indoors. The first snow can’t be that far off now.

Plant — The last leaves are falling off of my trees and it is definitely getting colder, but this potted plant is still blooming its heart out. I moved this one into the garage for sure and may try to save it for indoor color this winter. Maybe it will be easier to capture the seeds once it’s inside. Another project!!

Have a happy week everyone.

Yarn Feeding Frenzy

It’s been a kind of tough few weeks and I’ve been missing too much knitting. Last week I pulled myself together and returned to my weekly Wednesday knitting group at my favorite yarn store, Colorful Yarns in Centennial, Colorado. How wonderful to return to my peeps. How great it was to catch up on the new yarns and books. It was a little like coming home after a trip away… there was even a commotion going on between rowdy shoppers towards the front of the store. As shrieking and laughing continued I finally wandered over to see what was up.

Skein of Yarn — Looks pretty innocent, doesn’t it. This yarn, which I wouldn’t have ordinarily given a second glance to, was the trigger for a major yarn event at my local yarn shop. It is Bamboo Bloom by Universal Yarn. The color I bought is called Emperor.

It was a yarn feeding frenzy!! Having caught the scent of ~~blood in the water~~ a great yarn, ladies were digging through a tub of artsy looking yarn on the floor. Huh? Nice yarn, but what was the big deal? It makes a cowl, one of the frenzied yarn diggers told me. A second shopper waved the article in question at me… and I froze. Hey, this is kind of cool. I kind of want it. I need some of this yarn, but by this point there were only a couple of disappointing orange/tan colored skeins in the tub. Sniff.

Wait… Why are there more ladies pouring through the door to get this yarn? Answer: A new shipment of the yarn had arrived and the calls had just gone out. The first yarn sharks had pulled up and more were on the way. Oh, no! There was no way I wanted to miss this action. I suddenly realized that the bags of newly arrived yarn were on the floor by the cash register where a couple of ~~unprincipled~~ fearless shoppers had ripped them open and were busy handing out skeins in all the possible colors. Skeins were flying through the air! You know where I ended up… yep! Behind the register where the main action was occurring. After making some yarn tosses myself (go long, go long!) I gathered up examples of all the colors, plus the cowl in question, and carried them back to the other knitters in the group. Oops. That was that. A major yarn feeding frenzy and knit-along commenced. Woohoo!! I hoarded three skeins of the stuff myself for at least an hour before I calmed down enough to put two of them back into the tub.

So, here is what all the fuss was about.

Cake of yarn. — Here is the yarn once I had it wound up into a cake. Looks more interesting, doesn’t it. The puffs stand out, but actually there is about 10 times more bamboo yarn in length.

I finished the cowl this morning. Fast, easy, almost mindless knitting that was perfect for catching up on television that I missed over the weekend. Luckily there was a little action to break things up when I heard another (but not yarn related ) commotion occurring at the back door…

The cats had cornered a little garter snake out back and the commotion was Yellow Boy trying to bring it inside while MacKenzie fought to get the snake for himself. Yikes!! No, no, no! No snake frenzy! There was an intervention of the “release the wildlife” type. Cats in, snake out, and me knitting the rest of the cowl.

Tomorrow it is going to be a lot colder. I have a powder blue sweater that will be rocking my new cowl when I go to the Wednesday knitting group at Colorful Yarns.

It is good to hang out with your peeps. 🙂

FO: Drachenfels Shawl is Done!

Over the weekend my wrists got better and I did a little knitting (3 – 5 rows) to exercise my hands. Yesterday the braces came off and my wrists were A-OK again, Yea!! I don’t quite know what happened, but what the heck. I got to work and finished up the Drachenfels shawl.

Edging — and the edging! Look at this. I used four colors in the shawl instead of the 3 called for, and the black is the 4th color. I just love this edging; the colorwork gives the edge a little weight and helps the drape. The I-cord bindoff is done on needles 2 sizes larger (I used a size 6) so that the edging has the perfect amount of stretch. Here are my notes on Ravelry.

This shawl has been going on for awhile. Instead of posting all the pictures again I thought that I would give the links here in case anyone wants to look back at my Drachenfels’ baby pictures.

The shawl start: Farewell Summer, Hello Drachenfels
Drachenfels: Making Progess
The day I had a Drachenfels tantrum and had to go into wrist braces: Rocking the Craft Room

The shawl needs some blocking but since it is so big I’m not going to wet block it. Besides, I am just dying to wear it and who wants to wait that long? I’m just going to hit it with some steam, smooth it out a little, and put this yummy baby to work.

I’m off to wind some yarn. Must knit more!!

Bolt from the Blue: The Encouraging Thunder Award

A couple weeks ago I woke up to a shock in the email box: That Girl at (Not) Another Lupus Blog nominated me for the Encouraging Thunder award, which is meant to recognize blogs that are inspiring and encouraging to their readers. Say, what? I have to say that of the many blogs and comments out there, one of the best, funniest, and uplifting to me is the one that That Girl writes. She is dealing with serious autoimmune diseases that continually derail her life, and she makes me laugh out loud while she relates the latest adventure/disaster. Check out this post about a particularly bad time waiting for her meds to arrive in the mail and you’ll see what I mean. Her blog empowers me to face down whatever may come my way and to deal with my health adventures with grace and humor. She does inspire me. She makes me laugh. She says nice things about my knitting. If ever there was a person who is encouraging, it is her.

encouraging-thunder-award

I am stunned that she passed the award on to me too. Wow. She is a tough act to follow. It is also kind of weird to think that somehow, typing out into the void about my life with cats, yarn and scleroderma, things that I think about and create connect with other people. Thank you That Girl for thinking of me. It’s an honor to accept and pass the torch (thunderbolt) on to others.

So, this is how the award works: I am supposed to talk about why I blog. That Girl used the opportunity in her post to re-examine her purpose in blogging. Here is her wonderful and reflective post. As I read her thoughts it pushed me into some reflection of my own. There has been a lot of water under the bridge since the start of the blog, and I guess as I changed over time I didn’t really think about this too much.

Here’s the deal: I started to blog because I was going through a tough time and I was isolated. My family was in crisis. I had just retired from the best job in the whole world and was in grief over the loss of my biology classroom. The transition was especially hard since I was going from an adrenalin-charged, immensely creative and social day (hello: 150 high school kiddos a day! Did I mention that it was a lab class…) to one at home with yarn and the cats. I was already sick but not yet diagnosed; it was hard to know if the disconnected symptoms, fatigue, and pain were real or me just feeling sorry for myself. I began to pour my creative energies into knitting and writing; I started the blog to put my transition into retirement out into the digital world; maybe there would be some people who shared my interests. Then the diagnosis of systemic sclerosis (and Sjogren’s) came in and I decided to share some of that. What a wonderful idea it was. Now people reach back to me and make me stronger. Thank you to everyone who has read this far down the post. You are the reason why I blog. You make me more creative (and brave) as you share your crafting adventures, your cats/dogs, your gardens, disasters, and medical adventures.

Thank you again That Girl. You made me think about all of this and I think that I’m ready to blog on!

And now it’s time for to pay it forward. Here are some bloggers who given me inspiration and encouraged me to knit on no matter what.

Sharon at Creativity and Family. This woman is the motherlode of creative inspiration. I don’t think that there is a craft she doesn’t take on. She has a button collection!! There are yummy recipes on occasion, and her kids seem amazing. They have monthly presents. Oh, yeah, she also has lupus and some physical limitations but you have to be very alert to pick up on this because she absolutely refuses to let it define her. She is kind of my hero! Check her out.
Phil at The Twisted Yarn. OK, I’m just going to come out and say it: she totally intimidates me. She has such a fun and unique voice. She takes us to all things yarn and on trips through the countryside with the toddler twinage. She creates amazing projects that I never would have thought of like a Mandala and a knitted pigeon. Reading her posts made me think about my “voice”, but in the presence of quirky greatness it is best to not try to compete.
Lisa at Comfortable in Thick Skin. What can I say? She is a scleroderma warrior. She makes me think that I should be more brave and proactive with everything in my life.
Gaye at Confessions of a YarnHo. She just moved the blog into a new home that is a beautiful professional site. She loves yarn, she is full of joy, she will make your day. The end of every post is “Knit on my fiber friends… knit on” How encouraging can you be.

If I nominated you and you choose to accept, here are the fiddly rules:

When you get this award, you can:

Post it and the logo on your blog
Pay it forward by nominating others

You cannot:

Abuse or misuse the logo
Claim the logo is your own

If you receive the award you should:

Give thanks via comments and likes in the blog of the person nominating you
Mention the person who nominated you in your award blog
Discuss your purpose in blogging in your award blog

That’s all folks. If you are reading this That Girl, thanks for the award, and thanks even more for your presence in my blogging life.

Rocking the Craft Room

This is all Sharon’s fault! I’m referring to Sharon of Creativity and Family. Yesterday I woke up to find that she had posted a long, chatty list of all of her WIPs and projects for the coming winter months. Oh, my goodness! The woman has big dreams and a diverse (and endless) number of projects all lined up. She quilts, knits, crochets, sews, is doing something mysterious with scrabble pieces, and even makes her own yarn from tee-shirts. If you don’t already follow her you should check out her post.

The other thing that I discovered when I woke up was that my wrists, ankles and knees hurt. Like the tendons. Like there is no way that I am going to be knitting anytime in the near future.

This is so not fair! I am just entering the final pattern section and bind-off of the Drachenfels. One more day (or two) and it would be done. I want it, I want it, I want it now!!! <snif>

Whatever. It’s getting warm again outside and I won’t be wearing a shawl for the next 10 days or so. Lots of time to get it finished. What I decided to do was to channel Sharon, go play in the craft room and shop the stash. If I can’t actually knit, I certainly can organize things, match patterns to yarn/projects and try to create a queue of my future crafting for the coming cold weather months. Yeah. That’s the ticket.

Storage — I already had yarn organized into types and weight. I just had to start pulling out yarn and reorganizing it in the bins with the patterns for my coming projects into some of my spare bins.

I pulled out several boxes of yarn into the main craft room and then discovered that it hurt my wrists to snap open and shut the latches on the boxes. Well, isn’t that special! Lucky for me I’m an old pro with wrist tendinitis. Years ago I had carpal tunnel surgery and spent months in braces. For a few years after that I still wore my braces when doing wrist challenging activities like moving books in my classroom or organizing boxes in the garage. I had to go on a hunt to find them, but eventually my wrist braces were located in a drawer of my desk in the office. I just needed to create some padding to go under them because I have edema in my arms these days (thank you scleroderma!!)

cutting off the toes of socks — I cut off the toes…

Thumb hole — Cut a slit in the side to make an opening for my thumb…

sock mitts — and I had the perfect padding mitts to go under the braces. 🙂

Wrist braces — Add the braces and I attackd the bins! These braces look awful but as soon as they are on my wrist feels wonderful. I think I may sleep in them tonight.

Knitting projects — Here is the finished stack of knitting projects. Good grief!!

This was just fun to do. I moved yarn around and got things reorganized to create the project bins. I copied patterns from books and magazines with my printer/scanner so that I could slip the pattern into the bin with the yarn. The big bins contain the yarn and patterns for two sweaters, and the smaller bins have 1-3 projects each. I sat down (on the floor!) with my stack of boxes and the laptop computer and then entered everything into Ravelry to create this queue. In addition to the two sweaters I have 5 shawls, 2 long mitts, 3 socks and 2 hats. I thought about trying to put everything into the actual order that I will do the projects, but that is just crazy thinking. At least I have things into the queue and can move items around as I actually get started. Check out my queue if you want to see what I have lined up. 🙂

Since I was working in the craft room with the sewing machine it was a little hard to ignore the stack of projects on the shelf next to it. I pulled them down and discovered more to do. I had actually forgotten some of this…

Autumn Quilt — Look! This is an autumn themed quilt that I started a year ago and never finished. I just need to get the batting, sandwich the layers and then do the quilting. I’m not showing the whole thing now because… reasons. If I hurry it will be done before Thanksgiving! Stay tuned.

stuff — This is a special edition Colorado themed batik that I bought to sew a Professional Tote Bag with compartments and all the room I need to drag around knitting. The pink fabric and the blue with the small dots to the left is for the linings.

and last but not least I had decided to make everyone new dishtowels this year — While I’m talking about Christmas, I also organized this idea for Christmas dishtowels. A few years ago I made everyone towels in a plaid design. When I got to the end of the warp I made this scrap with a natural colored weft. I kind of like it, and am thinking that if I get the warp back onto the loom it will make fast towels to give everyone with some of the other things I have planned.

Well, that’s it for now. I have organized and pulled to the front of the pile lots of projects and ideas. I’ve been wearing the braces for two days and my wrists are feeling better. I think that if I protect and rest them for another couple of days I will be good to go with the Drachenfels and hopefully it will be done by the end of next week.

If not I guess I’ll keep the braces on and get the garage cleaned out!

Have a great weekend everyone.