Falling to Pieces

I was so happy to be finally returning to some normalcy.   Weaving again, even if for short periods and slower.    It takes me longer to weave an item and so I nibble away at the inches carefully. I was on towel number four of seven when I noticed an ache in my right shoulder that radiated to my top of my spine.    I stopped right away and used an ice pack and some advil. 

Next day I felt like a truck had run over my shoulder  and now the pain radiated down the outside of my bicep to my elbow and down into my wrist.

No, it's not frozen shoulder, but nerve impingement. I swear if I didn't have bad luck, I'd have none  at all! 

So for the past three weeks, I medicate, and apply ice packs and  no weaving or even spinning (as that's my dominant arm / hand).  I have been playing with drafts and designs.... and reading some of my weaving library. I figure that if I can't weave as much or as often, then when I do a new project, it should be something special.

Oh, and yes I'm feeling a tad bit depressed.  I already had a seven month holiday due to my lower back and stenosis so I thought I would be able to enjoy my life more again. 

NOPE!

I developed a ganglion cyst on my right instep and I can't even wear shoes. So waiting on a Doctor to deal with that and I'm certain it will involve needles and pain.  

Then my big toe on my left foot became infected and so I am dealing with that issue as well.

So.... yeah, depression is a thing.  😬

The blue gel icepacks are a life saver!  I rest one behind my shoulder and lay my elbow and arm on a second one and that's my evening in a nutshell. 

I do have two lace shawls to photograph but its been way too dark to photograph them properly so they wait patiently.

I had to pause my Etsy shop due to a nationwide postal strike..... so no joy there. Bah Humbug to all those concerned. 

I'm getting a lot of reading done and we have been enjoying the joys of streaming TV  .... with ice packs. 

For those of you who are weaving up a storm, throw one for me please!

Learning to Speak Airedalian

I'm still here! Sorry to neglect you, its just that life has been rather busy. When a friend writes me to ask how things are going, then I know I'm overdue!  Now I'm going to tell you a secret: some bloggers have draft posts 'stored' and so are reporting events and stories that technically are a week or three old. It provides a buffer for when life happens and time is tight!  Right now, I have no 'stories in the can' and I'm having to weave to give you something! Trouble is, I'm supposed to be taking it easy on my back, so the weaving is slower. Add to that, my new chair base hasn't arrived and I'm perched up on a pile of pillows and you have a very comical picture. No, I'm not showing you... you'll have to take my word for it.  In the mean time, I'm two thirds of the way through scarf two out of three. I'm making good time all things considered.

I have a nice satisfying roll building on the cloth beam. Click on the picture to see more detail.

I'm using black 8/2 tencel as my weft for the first two scarves and I'll try black 20/2 silk on the third. It will most likely weave up finer and narrower so I'm doing that one last.  But I have a big problem; a 45 pound problem:

Calli loves to play with the cheap street hockey balls and the game is always on! Red balls under the treadles, jammed under the chair legs. What makes it so darn cute is that she doesn't get greedy about hanging onto the ball and will give it to you if you ask her for it. Smart dog! If you have the ball, then you'll throw it.... right?!
So when not throwing the ball, or a stick on our walks, I have been trying to throw a shuttle! In between walking her three to four times a day which is healthy for both of us but does cut into weaving time. (I need to be mobile more so this is a good thing!)

We had a very nasty winter wind storm roll through here yesterday with wind gusts tipping the scales at 162 kph. That's Category 1 hurricane force winds. We broke out candles, filled the bath tub with water to flush with (we're on a well with an electric pump), and battened down the windows. The storm rolled in about 9 am and by 10 am we were in the dark and we stayed that way until 7:30- 8 pm that night. So what to do? weave!
The big loom is right by the bright window and so I climbed up on the bench and got busy. This is all I got done:

 Even with soft pillows the edge of the bench pressed into the back of my right leg and in a very short period of time, say ten minutes, I could feel the sciatic nerve tingling! I stopped right away and went and lay down  for half an hour. So that was stupid  huh? I had no pain before I did that....   My Louet Spring was sitting down in the dark end of the studio and it was hard to see. I put TV trays next to it with candles burning and wove for a time.

When the wind finally died down, we got this instead:

That's a torrent of rain, snow, and hail altogether and you would not be able to take three steps without being totally soaked. But its dry indoors and always  playtime!

Calli is settling in very well and as you can see, recovering from her spaying quite well. From the first morning after surgery, you would never know she had had it done. Amazing recuperation! We are learning to live together and what the house rules are and she's actually doing very well. Her obedience training is terrific and with some calm but firm repetition she's picking things up quickly, which is not bad for 10 1/2 months old and just entering her adolescence. Now we need to learn Airedalian!  I'm catching episodes of the Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan and he makes sense! I've been trying his techniques and so far, they work. I need to pick up on the doggy clues faster.  {Connor at his old age of 13+ years knew us thoroughly and I swear most of our communication was almost unspoken. Yes, he has us that well trained!)

So that's all for now and I'm hoping to have some real show and tell for you soon! Now won't that be exciting?

I'll be trying to weave with all this going on!

The best one is the ball you can't reach..... 

Dad has the video camera out... new baby in the house! Don't ya just love it?    :)

Cobbling Things Together

I have a confession to make. It seems I might have pushed things a bit and had a bit of a set back this past week. I suspect strongly that sitting on my weaving bench, even with a cushion, to do that one weaving repeat I showed you in my last post aggravated the nerve. My physiotherapist agrees. So I resumed my 'resting' and left the loom alone. Its so hard  NOT being able to weave...

So the hard edge of the wooden bench(s) is an issue, even with my elevating the rear legs to angle the bench. Its a problem now and I can see where it may contribute to future flare up's. So Hub and I did some talking about what might be a good fix.  I heard that Fireside looms makes an angled bench but its a bit spendy.  We went to our local Staples office supply store and looked at chairs, all kinds of chairs. At first we thought a  tall drafting chair would do as it can be raised to higher positions than normal chairs, but the edge of the seat was hard and not really rounded or soft.  Your normal office style chairs will only come up to 21 inches at full height and my bench at the Louet is at 22 1/2 inches. That small difference is actually a lot up top at the breast beam ! The Woolhouse Tools CM loom has an even higher bench at 27 inches, so being able to make adjustments is important.

So here's what we have come up with:

It's a regular style office chair but it has the added bonus of being able to adjust just about everything! You can move the back up and down, the entire back will shift to adjust the lumbar support, the seat will be flat or even tipped forward, the entire seat will drop or rise  and finally the arm rests can be moved up and down, moved in or out from the chair or even removed entirely.

 There is some good news and some bad news though...   The good? It was on SALE for $99.00 !!  The bad? it will only rise to 21 inches. So we want to see if the chair meets my basic needs which is to not cut into the back of my thighs and and be comfortable to weave with. If not, we can return it , no questions asked. 

If it works then there is a special extension base that can be bought separately that will increase the rise by either 8 inches in one model, 10 inches in another. With the part being a special order, it can't be returned. If this test of the chair works, then the 8 inch additional riser will do as the other loom will be covered too with 2 extra inches to spare.

So today I felt good enough to give it a try. The focus is the chair and seeing if it will work so...

I gathered up my usual bench cushions on the chair and sat and wove for a bit. Well, one repeat! I can't stop half way you know or I'll lose my place. My ample butt compressed things down a bit too far but there was no pressure on the thighs! The arms didn't get on the way and I actually needed them to hoist myself up on the cushions. I needed more height so I found one more pillow for the pile and tried that.

It looks ridiculous but it helps to boost me up the needed right height and hey, I wove a repeat or two more as well. It was right there in front of me after all.  So I think this will work out nicely and with the new special base I can use the chair at either loom. I'm going to order the part this coming week. So for someone who was only going to size up a chair and take 20 minutes, I wove up 21 inches and then called it a day. Don't tell my physiotherapist okay?!

So what else have I been doing? Not a whole lot to be truthful but I have kept my spinning wheel humming. I have a lot of singles to ply up. This is 70% merino with 30% silk in a pumpkin shade and no, I'm not sure what it will become (yet)

I'm one of those spinners who will buy another bobbin over plying.  I have quite simply run out of bobbins so plying will be ongoing for while!

I have also been using the time to catch up on annual paper work, reports and writing letters. I have family living in the flood zone in Queensland Australia and between water and cyclones they have been well tested. But  my great aunt is 94 and has survived fires and floods before, plus a world war so she's doing fine. I would like to thank reader Gay in Melbourne for your assistance to our family during what has been a difficult time for Australia.

If you have followed my blog for any length of time, then you'll know that this time last year we were in the middle of a full kitchen renovation. Well, it was much, much more than that but I won't force you to live through it again. I know I don't want to do it again! Hub, Bruce found a wonderful new area rug for our new dining room walnut hardwood floor. Its not the usual Asian style pattern and I love the colours. In fact, it looks like a tapestry! It was on clearance and came home with us that same day.

Here's another view!  Its made from 100% wool from New Zealand.

The light cream portions match the cream of the new kitchen cupboards. It was worth the wait to find it. Thanks Hun.