A True Story

ToolMan and I were sitting in ICU this morning, waiting for the final test results so his cardiologist could cut him loose. They had done the blood draw, written the prescriptions, taken out the IV, explained home care; everything except call for the wheelchair. We're watching the hallway for the nurse, when a man in scrubs comes walking down the hall from the direction of the Cardiac Operating Room, holding his glasses in his hands, and saying, "These are my old glasses; no wonder I can't see sh*t!" We laughed all the way home.

Further Developments

A few minutes ago I talked to ToolMan, who is loopy on morphine. Here's an update:

1. He says they fed him dinner; he can't remember what it was but he thinks he ate it.
2. He says his room is hot (Is there such a thing as a hot ICU room????), so he tried to call the nurses to come change the temperature but there aren't any on duty. (Yeah, right . . .)
3. He said he'd been calling me for hours and I didn't answer the phone so he left messages (Jeez, who knows who he called or what he said!)
4. He also says they tied his leg to the bed so he can't get up. (What is it that makes me think this part of the conversation might actually be true?)
   

Today Was NOT a Good Day

ToolMan woke me up at 5:30 a.m. saying he had severe chest pains, running up his neck, and down his left arm. I called 911, who sent both TVF&R and MetroWest Ambulance, lights going and sirens blaring. They confirmed he was having a heart attack, started giving potassium, nitroglycerin, and aspirin and continued it all the way to St. Vincent's Hospital. By the time we arrived, at 6:15 a.m., his cardiologists were there to meet us. They ran blood tests, X-rays, MRIs, EKGs, and did an angiogram, where they found a single artery with blockage - 98% closed. They've done an angioplasty and put in a stint. The blood enzyme tests show that he has very minimal damage; the cardiologist thinks we caught it within an hour of onset.

Thanks to the quick acting guys/gals at TVF&R and MetroWest for starting medication so quickly that he avoided not only lots of heart damage, but a possible stroke as well. With that amount of blockage, had we waited, or the emergency crew not been on top of things, we would have had a very different outcome.

When I last saw him a little after 5 p.m., he was loopy on morphine and complaining because he was hungry (he hasn't eaten since dinner last night), asking the nurses to bring him a hamburger and milkshake (which didn't win any points with the cardiologist). The Docs think he'll probably be ready for discharge tomorrow afternoon, although because of the heat (and we don't have AC), I may ask them to keep him another day. Either way, I'll keep everybody posted.

PS - Thanks to everybody who posted comments for my Dad! He'll see them before he leaves for the tournament on Wednesday.

A Great American Sport

You all know how excited and enthusiastic I am about my knitting and spinning. Apparently, this little apple didn't fall far from the tree. My dad is just as enthusiastic about horseshoe pitching. Good thing, too, because he's pretty darn good at it. In fact, he belongs to this.

(Click to embiggen.)

Good enough, in fact, that he's going there next week. Where he's going to compete in this. Good luck, Dad!

Yes Sir, Yes Sir, Three Bags Full . . . .

Remember the box of "exploded clown" that Meg sent me a couple weeks ago? I've been sorting, processing, and organizing it. I found these great storage bags at Dollar Tree; they're perfect for storing fiber and yarn.

I started by sorting each color into a bag. Then I pulled out the intact locks from each color into their own storage bag, then carded the remainder and put it into a bag of its own. There are a couple of bunches that are blindingly bright (a lime green and a hot red), but the others are "calming down" considerably when they're carded.

I've only got about half of it sorted, picked, carded, and stored and it's already bigger than the box it came in! Meg really packed that box full! But I have a class of Chinese exchange students to give a demo/class to on Wednesday afternoon, a beginning spinner who needs to get some fiber to experiment with at Spinning Our Wheels on Wednesday, and a new spinner to get started at Westside Wednesday. Meg didn't give me the details on what breed the sheep are, but there is some VERY nice fiber in here!

Despite all the fiber prep going on, I have actually done some knitting. Case in point is this sample sock for StitchJones. Sharon has this pattern for sale, but the picture on the printout has another company's yarn. Big No-No for an indie dyer! And this lonely only will be on display at Sock Summit on a couple of weeks.

Speaking of Sock Summit, a bunch of the PDX Knit Bloggers met with Tina and Stephanie last Wednesday to get our volunteer assignments. Man, have they got stuff planned down to the last itty-bitty detail! There are spreadsheets, and notes, and computer files, and display boards, and post-it notes, and color-coding, and indexed tabs. They've got more office supplies than Staples! And we heard about stuff that isn't on the Sock Summit website. This is going to be serious fun! And, it's coming up in barely 3 weeks!

Which means that I really need to get knitting on this if I want to wear it there.

A top-down, round yoke, short sleeve cardigan, knit in a wool/nylon blend from Yarnia on size 6 circulars. Will I make it in time? And more, importantly, will it fit? And, yes, I SWATCHED.

Good things . . .

come in small boxes, so they say. I think good things come in boxes of all sizes.

Here's a finished project to go in the "Next Christmas" box.



They're a little big for me but they should fit the recipient well enough. After a nice soak and rinse, they'll go in the box for next December.

And speaking of boxes, last week at Westside Wednesday one of my Knit Sibs/Spinning Sister, Tami handed this box to me.

A great bamboo box, and inside was little teapot and another little box of flowering tea. Tami's DH, Brandon, works at Norm Thompson; he said when he saw this in their company store, he immediately thought of me.

I'd been feeling kind of puny early last week and wasn't sure if I was coming down with something or if the sarcoidosis was revving up again. This was just the thing to perk me up. Thanks, Brandon!

I finished up plying the "Earth Angel" from StitchJones and it came out great. Here it is posed "a la Dave Daniels." Except he's better at the artsy posing of yarn than I am.

I can, however, make great skeins. That's 736 yards of DK weight 2-ply. I'm not sure exactly what this will be yet, so into the stash box it goes.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I came down with some sinus congestion that resulted in an earache and sore throat. So I brewed up a batch of my new tea in my new little teapot.

The tea flowers are enough to brighten anyone's day and the tea is delightful. The teapot is just the right size for two cups. The cozy that Roxie sent me a few weeks ago is a tad too big for this little pot so I need to whip up a cozy for it. I think I'll use my odds and ends of handspun to make a stripey one.

The Salvation Army opened a new store near us just a couple of weeks ago, but I hadn't checked it out yet. ToolMan and I stopped in last weekend and I found another 100% cashmere sweater

A pretty good deal, right? Well, when I took it up to the register, it was 1/2 price since it had already been there 10 days. Sweet! This is one big sweater; it's a mens XXL so it reaches almost to my knees. With the last two I frogged, this should pretty well fill up my cashmere stash for awhile!

Remember I joined a group on Ravelry called "Spin-Cycle"? It's not a swap, instead it's a "get what you want; give what you don't" group. I had asked for some "exploded clown" fiber to use at spinning demonstrations. Last week, this box arrived from Meg in North Carolina.

Inside? As requested, and "exploded clown"!


A whole box of dyed locks! With a sweet note from Meg saying these were from her own sheep and she had dyed them herself. These bright colors will be great for teaching kids and being able to show the ply with different colors. And it'll be fun to blend the colors together with handcards to make new colors.

This last one isn't a box; it's a bag. A knitting project bag, to be specific. I had a little traveling jewelry bag that I showed Kathleen with the idea of adapting it to a knitting bag. Being the expert seamstress that she is, she went right home and whipped one up. After examining it and offering suggestions, she made a second version



And then she gave it to me for a test drive! I've stuffed mine with all my notions and a couple of projects. She'll be offering these for sale later in the year so I'll let you know when they're ready.

Oops! I did it again!

Missed my regular Sunday night blog post, that is! Just too many things going and too tired after the weekend, I think.

I finally finished the Clapotis from my handspun just in time for the 90 degree weather on the 4th of July. I spun the yarn last year; it's from the "oops" Blue Moon Fiber Arts Sheep to Shoe that I bought at Tina's first de-stashing sale.

I spun this when I was first learning and did nothing to control the colors or striping; heck, I could barely control the diameter of the singles when I spun this! I particularly pleased with the colors; it looks good with nearly everything in my closet.

The yarn is a 2-ply sock weight, so it folds up small enough to carry in my purse or knitting bag to ward off air conditioning chill. I had random strangers comment on it at Binyon's when we went to pick up ToolMan's new glasses and at the Library when I was checking out books.

I'm finishing up the socks, too; I'm past the gussets and working up the legs. I knit both socks at once like a lot of knitters, except I do mine on two sets of dpns. Yes, I've tried 2 circulars and magic loop, but both those methods are just too fiddly for me; I get better results on double-pointed needles.

This was some of the free yarn included in my swag bag from TKGA; it's Heart and Sole by Red Heart which is superwash wool and nylon that has been treated with aloe. It is pretty stiff but softens a lot after washing and drying. My local Joann's has started carrying this at only $4.99 a ball, so a pair is under $20. If it wears well, it'll probably become my "go to" yarn for everyday socks.

I got a nice surprise in the mail last week when this arrived from Melody at Freshwater Fibers in Eugene, Oregon. I joined a Ravelry group, "Spin-cycle," where spinners can ask for or offer fiber and tools. Melody said she had this pencil roving that she didn't like and was slightly felted, so I asked for it to use for spinning demonstrations. I don't know if Melody dyed this, but the colors are really clear and pretty and the fiber is really soft; it'll be great to use for demonstrating spinning. Melody has lots of other beautiful things in her Etsy shop, so go over there and give this nice lady some of your business.

We went had a family get-together at SIL Faye and BIL Jim's for the 4th. How nice it is to go there and have someone else cook! We had a traditional 4th of July meal of Spanish paella, French bread, and German chocolate cake. They say America is a "melting pot", but in this case it was more of a smorgasbord.

Another nice thing about going to the in-laws is that they have come to expect that the wheel comes with me. BIL Myron used to work for Pendleton, so he's always interested in what fiber I'm spinning, or what I'm trying next. SIL Faye loves the colors and always wants to know what I'll do with the yarn when it's done.

On Saturday, I got the 4th bobbin of "Earth Angel" finished and on Sunday I plied bobbins 2 and 3 together; that's the bobbin on the left. I've found that my singles tend to either get thinner or thicker when I'm spinning more than 2 bobbins, even though I do use a sample card. So, in order to "even out" the finished yarn, I ply bobbins 1 and 4 together (thickest and thinnest) and bobbins 2 and 3 together (both medium). This makes my finished yarns more consistent from start to finish. As for what this will eventually be knitted into? Who knows!