Trip to the ER

Spent 7 hours at the hospital today. Abdominal pain that was so bad I was SURE it was a kidney stone. I had one about 2 years ago that woke me from a sound sleep. The pain was so bad I couldn't walk, was reduced to crawling to my phone to call 911. That was an interesting day involving an ambulance and a bunch of morphine. Ended with me sitting in a waiting room in my underwear, holding a phone, morphined out of my mind and unable to recall anyone's phone number to call for help getting home.

Today wasn't quite that exciting. I got to do the blood work thing and the pee in a cup thing, the IV thing, the Xray and MRI thing. Couldn't find anything. Wow, I was so sure it was a kidney stone! It has that same deep kinda pain that fluctuates in intensity.

The hospital staff were all really great. They got me warm blankets and really took good care of me.  They put something in the IV that took the edge off for quite a while. Then when that wasn't working so good anymore they gave me something better. Took it from stabby pain to dull ache. . . something way more do-able. Couldn't drive though, so I had to reach Jenny and ask her to come give me a ride home.

That is how I found myself knitting on the shetland shawl handicapped by an IV in my left arm. Had to hold it kind of further out so as not to bend my elbow. Then I held the left needle really still, twisting and turning the right needle, making it do all the work. I did about 8 rows of the lace before the drugs make me afraid to continue on it. I switched to frogging the ribbing off the sheltland hat. I could handle pulling a string even messed up.

What's on the Wheel - the Christmas Fleece

The place of employment goes on holiday from Christmas till New Year. Of course the first thing I think is WHAT a great time to process a fleece!

I had heard that shetland sheep produced really soft wool that was easy to spin. Shetland are an endangered breed from the Shetland Islands. Their wool fueled a hand knitting industry that draped the victorian upper class in gossamer lace.

The Windsweptspinner from Windswept Farms went out of her way to get a fleece in the mail to me before the holiday. It arrived in short order and was beautiful! Creamy white with carmel colored tips and oh soooo soft.

Yeah that's some in the bath right there. I got yards and yards of netting from the fabric store to use like giant tea bags. When the wool is done soaking just pick up the netting by the corners. It kept the lock structure intact so I hope I did it right.  I've only done this once so I'm no expert.

Don't tell everyone, but I really love opening the box or bag with a fresh fleece in it. That barn smell. I like it. I like the way the bathroom smells like wet sheep for the 2 or 3 days it takes me to wash the whole fleece.

And then it has to dry. Baby gates come in really handy to make drying shelves, cheap too. Just prop both ends up on something handy. This one is using one shelf of a bookshelf and on the other end on a plastic storage tub.

Fluffy clouds of creamy goodness drying in the craft room. I couldn't wait to try spinning it! I had no idea what I wanted to make at this point. I'm gonna let the fleece tell me what it wants to be. I have no experience with shetland.

The first thing I did was spin some up thin and spin some up thick. Do a lot of experimenting to see what the fiber wanted to do. Oh my gosh! It is so soft in my hands and practically spins its self. I carded some and made some thicker yarn that is so soft and lofty light. It is the color of oatmeal. I love it. I want it to be a hat..... with cables maybe.

And it spins thin... oh yeah does it spin up thin. I've not gotten this close to lace weight with any other fiber yet. Could be I've gotten better, but I think a lot of it is this fleece! This laceweight is still soft after I have enough twist to hold it together. No wonder they used this to make lace back-in-the-day.

So that decided it. I'll make a lace shawl from this fleece. Ohhhhhhh yeah. Perfect!

There ya go. The shawl project has begun. I believe we are about 3 weeks in. There's about 1/4th of the fleece left to spin. There's a LOT more shawl to knit.

I keep telling myself - more to knit is more fun to have! Look at all the fun I have yet in front of me.









Luv and Purls
Pfluffernutter

  

The New Years Resolution Thing

This blog is this my 2011 resolution.  I did very well with the new year's resolution thing last year. Don't for one second think that I am good at New Year's resolutions. I don't think I have ever succeeded at keeping one single resolution in my life, ever. I'm no spring chicken so that is quite a few resolutions I had to get it right. Nope, not a one. Until last year.

 The well-fated resolution didn't even come to me until well into the year. I'm taking that as a lesson not to rush the resolution. If it is meant to be it will come in it's own time. The resolution was to "not dress like I'm camping ALL the time."

I don't think I'm exaggerating when I admit that my casual dress had gone a bit too far. FREE t shirts! Sleep on wet hair and it's sticking out all funny? That's what hats are for! Why spend hard earned money on shirts when they give us free Pepsi branded t shirts at work? Yeah I am 5 foot, 100lbs. Free gimmee t shirts are usually extra large. So what? Did I mention Free shirts?!

The thing that finally got to me was fear of that TV show What Not To Wear. Have you seen this show? Friends and family set some poor fool up. They secretly film the subject shopping and working in their embarrassing crappy clothes/hair. The hosts of the show then stage an ambush where they take this person completely unaware. The do offer a $5000 shopping trip, fashion lessons and make over in New York in exchange for forcing the victim to watch the embarrassing video and even watching the hosts of the show throw away all their current wardrobe while verbally trashing it.... piece by piece. I love to watch it. Is that evil?

IMDB Photo - Clinton & Stacy trashing a wardrobe on What Not To Wear.

It is so funny when it isn't you. Ha ha ha. What waaaas she thinking? Clinton holds up a hideous lime green... um... thing. Stacy wants to know how you managed to fit "the girls" in that ... is it a top? Is it a doily from your gramma's dresser top? Har har har har.

I'm not the kind of person to change my entire life style based on unwarranted fear of some TV show. However valid FEAR of a TV show is a dress of an entirely different color. Both of my  children watch that TV show and were very open about their opinion of my style or lack of same. They would turn me in. Other friends at work watch that show as well, but that is still not enough to really scare me.

I work in advertising in Dallas. Our office is in a high rise in downtown that is mostly other advertising agencies. There are camera crews shooting stuff all the time in and around our building. I don't know what half of it is. Could be tests shoots for commercials maybe? Rough draft kind of shoots for a sales pitch maybe? I don't know. The agency I am in doesn't do TV commercials. But lots of other agencies in the building are... apparently. So I was finding myself actually being paranoid that the work going on in the lobby / on the sidewalk was actually Clinton and Stacy preparing to "get me".

So that is how I came to find my self making the New Year's resolution to "not dress like I'm camping ALL the time."  I did it too! Even started doing the make-up thing.

 I'm going to dare to make a resolution for 2011.
This year I am going to try to post on this blog a couple of times a week.
I hope I can do as well this year on the resolution thingy.

Love and Purls
Pfluffernutter