12 inches of very dry snow!
Monthly Archives: January 2010
1.29.10 Vertebral Fiber
What a strange title for a fiber blog but there is it. I usually don’t include my personal health issues here but I thought that I would go ahead and tell you that it is no joke to have the fiber of your bones fail. A lot of my friends know that I used to be an RN. I didn’t really pay that much attention to my own health other than getting regular checkups, taking the occasional vitamins, following the instruction on the medications I take, having DEXA scans since I am in a high risk group, and doing my best to walk my dog and eat right, with the exception of sugar, which I must have, or I will die. FYI, nurses as a group are not as focused on their own health as they should be, but I was pretty darn good about it. Maybe I should have had a few more glasses of milk with my Oreos as a teenager. Maybe I should not have skipped so many meals in the “you should be a model” years.
Lo and behold, just into the early 50′s and up pops osteoporosis with 4 vertebral compression fractures in the thoracic spine. I had a DEXA scan back (haha) in the fall that did not reveal this. It said, come back in 2 years. Apparently you can have bone spurs that hide the decrease in density? Say what? Such an expensive test for an unreliable outcome. There go your health care dollars.
Who knows, but I kept telling them something was wrong. In addition to the ache… my hand knit sweaters didn’t fit properly! I kept having to short row the backs to add a little more length there. I know I have always had lousy posture but seriously, yarn is another thing entirely! And my back hurts for pete’s sake! More than just the lower back where the disc is herniated. So the xray revealed why I needed to add short rows. Now the medication begins. I guess I have an excuse to buy more yarn!
Read about Osteoporosis here. Seriously. Your fiber needs you. Take your calcium. Sneak calcium into your kids cookies.
The Ruffled Fichu continues! She is soft and pretty, such a nice girl with such an funny name. The grey yarn is handspun, the red/purple is hand painted lace weight mohair by Claudia Handpaints. I am really liking the knitting and result of the 2 yarns combined. The triangular part of the shawl is knit side to side. The ruffle is picked up from the loops on the long lower edge of the shawl and knit downward. Easy peasy.
And I made cookies to feed my sugar habit.
No weaving til the back feels better (again). Maybe I should rename my blog LadyoftheLoo. I often mistype it anyway.
1/20/10
Fichu? What does that mean? It sounds bad.
I started the 2nd shawl for Ravelry group “10 Shawls in 2010″. I doubt I will make 10 shawls this year but it is certainly fun to try. So, this is the Ruffled Fichu of Jane Sowerby from Knitter’s Magazine #88 from Fall 2007. The red/purple is Claudia Hand Painted kid mohair and the gray is handspun wool/silk, fiber from The Bellwether, spun on a spindle.
Ruffled Fichu
I have been searching for shawl patterns on ravelry when this one was in an old issue of Knitter’s magazine from 2007. I don’t think I ever even looked at this issue and who knows why I bought it, I think maybe to take with me on the UK trip. It was the issue before her marvelous shawl book came out. Knitter’s is not my usually my favorite magazine for a lot of reasons, and I have become less and less inspired by the patterns in knitting magazines in general. The designs are overdone. The garments are too fitted for me to feel comfy wearing them. And for me things are all about comfort.
1.15.09
My baby brother is out of the hospital and home with his family. I am back on on the office chair at the desk after a visit to their neck of the woods for a few days. Well, it used to be woods about 40 years ago but is now part of the sprawl of the DC Metro area. While I was away I did just a little knitting on the Swallowtail Shawl and here she is after finishing today. This shawl pattern is lovely and entertaining to work!
The finished shawl is a good shoulder warmer and is my first completed lace for the Ravelry group 10 Shawls in 2010. The dark green yarn doesn’t help but the nupps are there.
You should have seen me sneaking up on these two to obtain this photo. Never in the 2 years since I adopted Charlemagne the Emperor has he been lounging peacefully in the same room as Suzie. Usually Charlie has some unkind words or gestures to my long-suffering Suzie and they whine like children for my attention. Suzie was quiet and I think a little afraid to move. Is this what they mean by detente?
