The Fingerless Mitts for Mary Beth...

The fingerless mitts for Mary Beth are finished! These are the mitts that actually got me motivated for doing something once I was out of the hospital.

She is a weaver and owner of The Weft Handed Weaver site and blog where she is on the adventure of weaving and making the an authentic 18th Century cloak! I personally am finding this very interesting and exciting.

She asked me to make her the fingerless mitts because in the winter she cannot work well because her hands get cold. Since she does not knit, she asked me to knit her some fingerless mitts.

I was, first of all, hugely flattered, and second of all, I was thrilled to have something to knit in general. It was just the perfect project.

The yarn wasn't even a problem because Mary Beth had even spun some home spun in sock weight and had said she would provide me with equal amount of the yarn she had given me to knit the mitts in, which was a nice big ball of at least 50 grams at the very least! There is enough left over of the ball to do another set of mitts, which I am sincerely thinking of doing or adding it to the beautiful white she has given me for my own set of mitts for this winter.

Since Mary Beth is a "living museum" person, I did some research and came as close to an authentic 18th-19th Century set of working fingerless mitts as possible. Several articles I read debated on whether or not the fingers were "separate" or not, so I decided to just leave them free; if she decides she would like to have the fingers separate I can do this in less than 10 minutes time.

Because of this request, however, I have come up with some questions on my own:

• 
  What did women use to keep their heads warm, especially their ears, in winter for the inside of the drafty houses?
• How many knitted items were used during the 18th and 19th Centuries for warmth for the lower, middle, and upper classes?
• How affordable was yarn and fleece during these time periods and did everyone knit? Were there thriving yarn stores or did everyone just have a sheep or two in the back yard (which I simply can't see since even then sheep were expensive to keep I would imagine)?

Of course, I am going to have to do a little more research into these questions and see what answers I can come up with because there should be answers for these questions you know.

Settling In For The Future

I have decided that tomorrow I am going to plant as many seeds as I can in the pots I currently have and just hope for the best.  The Hubby doesn't have much clue about how to garden and even though I tell him that we need to get the seeds into the ground now as well as the plants he says "not this weekend", which is annoying, but there is nothing I can do about that.  So, I'm going to get as much done as I can as much into the dirt as possible.

On a good, positive note, the mitts are completed except for the sewing up part and weaving in the ends.  I still haven't done that yet, nor decided on what the next knitting project is going to be, but, at least there are ideas and I just have to choose between several.

Check Out The News

Today has been a day of migraines and thinking once the migraines were over.  I wrote about it over at The Kentucky Mountain Girl News, and since I didn't want to cross-post it to death I am just putting a link here.

In other news of the knitting variety, I have the mitts knitted, now I just need to sew them up and weave in the ends!  Now I have to decide what I want to do next!

Blue Skies and Yarn - A Perfect Day in the Making, Literally

Today has been a good day.  I have knitted and roamed Ravelry for most of the day and just let myself take deep breaths.  Yes, it has been another day of relaxing, mostly because a migraine and I have been sparing for much of it - and I won!  Well, I don't have a full-blown migraine.  Part of the reason, I am pretty sure, for not having the migraine has been because of the knitting.

I joined two more groups on Ravelry and left two others for no particular reason other than I just wasn't involved any more. 

The fingerless mitts for my friend should be done tomorrow at the very latest.  Since this project is almost finished there has been some time spent on deciding what the next project should be.  If something doesn't change, I am pretty sure I will do some spinning on the drop spindle and knitting on a sweater for the hubby as well as maybe a shall for myself.  My sister's scarf is just going to have to wait.  I have realized, at this time, lace isn't where I need to be as far as knitting skill is concerned.  I'm not giving up on lace-work or this particular project - just putting it aside for a little while so I can get myself prepared for lace.  This particular sister may get a faggoted lace scarf first before anything complicated.

The scarf I have in mind is simple and looks beautiful in my head.  I'm going to work on it some tomorrow, if the mitts are finished as I expect them to be, and get things lined out in my head.  It is simple "lace work" but I can finish it and get it blocked and to her in time for her birthday.  This is my goal at least and I am still going to keep it.

Hubby is going to have to go back into the "craft room" (which is really just a junk room again) for the spindle and roving.  There is something about knitting and spinning right now that is helping me to keep my shoulders and neck relaxed, which, in turn, is keeping away the migraines.  It is important for the migraines and arthritis not to meet up again like they did this weekend.  (It was unpleasant to say the very least.)

On a sad note, actress Lynn Redgrave lost her battle with breast cancer.  She was 67.  You can read more here

Thunderstorms

Yesterday was the perfect day to be outside. Today has been the perfect day to be inside: It has rained almost all day and we've had two pretty heavy storms. This has added to the knitting desire. Hubby has also played video games and I have knitted, blogged, and just relaxed.

X-Post: Aunt Rose

This has been the strangest of days so far. Got up to realize the cell phones were dead because the payment had not gone through because of the McAfee problem from a while ago. Luckily it was handled in relative time and speed; i.e. it was handled relatively quickly and semi-painlessly. Then, while I was just beginning breakfast I received a call from Sister1 who had bad news: One of my favorite aunts had passed away last night.

Back in the mountains family is the center of everything. You know your lineage and you keep in touch with as many people as possible if you move away. When I was young and oh so very sick, there were just some truly special people who made life feel more normal because they treated me as a normal child even though I realized I wasn’t just like everyone else – everyone else got to go to school and play games outside, run, and didn’t have to go to the hospital all the time with high fevers and didn’t have near death experiences.

My Aunt Rose was one of those people who made life “normal” or at least treated me normally. I wasn’t the family kid who was constantly sick; I was just me. Aunt Rose married my Uncle Ova and they were in existence long before I was born so I never knew anything different than Uncle Ova and Aunt Rose together. When he passed away it felt as if things had changed forever in the fabric of my reality because he was one of those people you always expected to live forever because he had that huge love of life very few people exude any more. Aunt Rose was a very special woman to keep up with him.

Of course, they had the perfect children to keep up with them. Two girls. One athletic and one just the sweetest, dearest person you could ever meet. Both of them were my best friends while growing up, and except for Boon-Boon and his family, my only friends. They helped me understand what being a “real girl” was like. Their acceptance of me actually gave me confidence to go through life because if they accepted me, other “real” people would as well.

When you lose your Mom, a part of you forever is lost and you feel it down to the very depths and core of your soul. My heart goes out to them. I want to be there for them. I need to be there for them.

Why wouldn’t I be there for them? Because my husband is very protective of me at the moment, and the migraines can come at the drop of a hat and I’m not supposed to get over exerted or exhausted to make sure they stay as far away as possible.

I love my Aunt Rose so much.

A Lot of 'Splaining To Do

Hello all, I am back again. I am also knitting some again. Thank goodness!

OK – so let me ‘splain.

On April 6 I took a nice ambulance ride to a local hospital emergency room. I had all of the symptoms and signs of a stroke: my left side was weak, numb, and unresponsive. I was in the hospital for seven days and six nights. The upshot of this was that no, I had not had a stroke, but I had had a rare migraine that is essentially a body migraine (the name is very long and I don’t know its correct spelling yet).

A neurosurgeon said there was a bone spur on a part of my spine that was putting pressure on my spinal column and could be causing my migraines. He said operating wasn’t currently in my future because it would be extremely tricky because of my medical problems with arthritis and osteoporosis. He also said that it could just be migraines but he wasn’t sure. The final conclusion was that the bone spur is putting pressure on my spinal column and could be causing these migraines and I need to keep a close eye on it, which means I now have a neurologist, which I see regularly beginning this Friday.

Since having the migraine my left side has slowly been returning to normal. My left arm and hand are almost back to normal, but my left leg isn’t quite. This means there is therapy in my future.

Since being home from the hospital I have had two migraines, just not the “body migraines”, thank goodness! I also had two pretty good ones while in the hospital. Also since being home from the hospital I have not worked because I have been weak as the proverbial kitten and am only just now getting caught up on rest and feeling normal.

Luckily, I have felt like knitting and nearly have a pair of fingerless mitts made for a friend of mine. Knitting and qi gong have helped me to start getting back to normal. Will post pictures of the mitts when they’re finished.