It's the end of the world as we know it, but I feel fine

At least for the moment, aside from high stress levels of course, but there won't be many people out there without stress issues right now.
I am still having health issues, but things are slowly improving, my cubital tunnel issues aren't improving for some reason but I'm also low on estrogen which might be affecting healing and inflammation.  I'm seeing a physio, though next week it's a different physio as mine came into contact with someone with Covid-19 so he's stuck at home for 2 weeks; assuming he doesn't get it.  It's possible I may be referred for further investigation, but who knows how that'll work with the current situation.

I'm still knitting of course, but this year I only tried to get in as a cheerleader for Sock Madness rather than a team; a team would have caused greater injury, so not worth it.   I've also been sewing, but the dress I made is now awaiting next summer to get finished, it's a touch snug right now but I don't want to make adjustments just yet.

1st Sock Madness sock, size L with 7 repeats of the pattern on the foot; so much larger than required, but it fits youngest.

My next projects will be more workout gear for me as well as casual trousers for Dh and sweat pants for eldest in a merino sweatshirting to keep him warm at school.  He's now in Yr 13 so doesn't have to wear uniform any more; he just has to look tidy.
I'm also going to do more work on the chair, a friend at guild has some cotton wadding her father bought 45 years ago and she's giving it to me to help out; if I bought some it'd be way too expensive so she's a lifesaver.  I have one horsetail, but can't get any more, the business I got it from (our cat food shop) is closing down so instead I'll be carding it with wool and keeping my fingers crossed it works.

I'm still cycling, but have taken a few days off after getting a cold, no one else in the family has it but me.  It's relatively mild but blocked a tear duct, haven't had that happen for a while, don't want it to happen again.  I've been massaging it and using colloidal silver to help clear things up and it has improved.  Looking forward to getting back on the bike.

On the Covid-19 front things aren't too bad here in NZ yet, our borders are pretty much closed, people who've come in from overseas are self-isolating (mostly, there have been a small number of tourists who were a bit cavalier in their attitudes and got caught out by that) and as far as we know there's no community transmission; we're all hoping it stays that way but of course there's a fair chance it won't.  Supermarkets have been hit with the stupid panic buyers.  I was lucky enough to be able to get everything we needed for the fortnight by going to 3 different places yesterday and got a wee bit extra to see us through a touch longer if needed.  I didn't go overboard though, got one bag of flour, not 2, the usual amount of bread etc.  Gatherings over 100 people indoors are now prohibited, guild is still meeting tomorrow, but I suspect that may go on hiatus for a bit shortly.  My husband's Judo club has closed down for the moment; not a sport that can do social distance easily, plus they have kids classes and don't want to spread it that way either.

One thing, the yarn community and also now some of the sewing community have been offering patterns free to help people stay sane while they're stuck at home; I thought that was a wonderful idea so I also put my one and only pay for pattern up free till the end of the month; hopefully it will help someone else stay sane through this.
Lace Chain Baby Socks the code to get it free is "AsWeKnowIt" without the quotes.

A Health Update

I've been seeing a kinesiologist and we've definitely made some progress on the bowel side of things, however I'm still getting muscle pain, tingling in my right foot and injuring myself more often than I should; it's also taking longer than it should for me to heal.  I'm figuring that I need to do more than I have been so I've been reading the Medical Medium books; well, I've read part of his first one and part of the Liver Rescue one which I got out from the library to read on my Samsung tablet.
I'm not ready to jump in fully yet, but a lot of what he writes makes sense to me so I'm going to slowly improve my diet to what he recommends and the first thing I've done it bought a juicer and started on this stuff:

This is my first morning of taking celery juice (please ignore the crumbs, school lunches were prepared first).  I've never been keen on celery, but I'm really hoping I develop a taste for it, cos it's not very nice at the moment!  So the plan is I'll be drinking this stuff every morning and following it up with a fruit based breakfast which no fats to help my liver; then I'll be doing salads for lunch followed by a pretty much normal dinner so it won't impact on the family meals.   I can't start the whole thing till my physical book arrives in a couple of weeks from the UK; however I'll probably wait for a few months until I do the detox since I suspect it'll make me feel pretty awful.  A friend is doing it now and she's got vertigo and tinnitus and other things going on from it, considering I get those to some extent normally I have to expect I'll get them too.
If it works for me, then I'll see if I can persuade the family to change their diet to be more liver friendly, don't know how easy that'll be considering one's stuck in his ways and another is autistic.  I hope it does, sick of not feeling as well as I should be.  Certainly the dietary changes can't hurt, and they may well help.

I'm still knitting, but less than normal as one of my pain areas is both arms.  I have an ulnar nerve injury on both sides and my bicep on my right is tight and grumpy (that's not an injury, suspecting it has more to do with RSI).  Doing exercises for them and stretching as well as stretching for groin ache which came on on Sunday.   I've had that on and off ever since my first surgery, suspecting that is a direct result of how they treat your body when you're under so they can get to everything.  If it doesn't ease off that'll take me to the doctor just to get checked out.

I do have an answer for one of my problems, though, well it's probably an answer.  The dizziness I got after my 2015 turn looks like it's an after effect of a silent migraine.  I get this feeling like a piece of soft cloth (velvet) brushing through my brain for a moment; then I get tired and the next morning I'm absolutely wasted, plus the feeling off centre thing comes back and I have to start my balance exercises again.  My symptoms point in the migraine direction, especially the aftermath.  I had an MRI about a year after the first one so it's nothing really bad, but it's not fun either.

I have been sewing and am cutting out more stuff shortly; I need more workout leggings and I also need more undies without FOE as I seem to react to that when it's in sensitive areas; pity, it's so much easier to apply than cotton bands.

Despite it all I finished a top!

Despite the sinus thing I've done some sewing and I finished a t-shirt I really love.  The main fabric is merino from The Fabric Shop which I got for $10 per metre.  I had to cut around a couple of holes, but it was worth it, the colour is gorgeous!

Tunic length (horrible lighting).  It keeps raining here so all photos are indoors with no decent lighting

And close up of the neckline (and the birdie) with equally horrible lighting.

On the health front I was worse yesterday and ended up at after hours again (to those from overseas this is like a walk-in clinic I think).  New antibiotics and another nasal spray with an antihistamine and the hopes that this works.  Yesterday was horrible!  Today I'm feeling a bit more human so have hopes for the future and am about to get 2 singlets sewn for youngest.  He's not so young now, 13 this month and we had his birthday party today which went off well despite having to cancel the visit to Willowbank (a local zoo) as it was raining quite hard.  He invited two friends from his old school who now go to the new school as well and they watched Fantastic Beasts and decorated pillowcases.   I'm now all out of decent cotton pillowcases so will have to come up with something new next year.

On the knitting front I'm up to the first heel on Dh's new socks, have just started a new shawl and got youngest to choose one skein of yarn from Vintage Purls to order for a new pair of socks.  I was expecting he'd choose green, but he chose lilac instead.  Looking forward to knitting those, just have to decide on a pattern.

Dh's Barrel Rider Socks

and my Aisling shawl which is being done in a merino/silk/yak singles yarn.

On Health

A step backward.   About 3 weeks ago I went down with a cold, courtesy of eldest who brought it home from school.  I thought I'd got over it, but seem to have some sort of viral complication, last week I had what felt like palpitations, the after hour place confirmed it wasn't (thank goodness), but it made me feel very unwell, and then on Sunday while I was on the Xbox I got a repeat of my funny head thing I got 2 years ago after a cold.  No visual disturbance this time, but the fizzy and off centre feeling head is back.   I've not gone back to the doctor for this, after over year going back and forward to them I got no answers at all.  I've booked in to see a balance physio in the hopes she can help instead.  Going by it being post colds both times it's more than likely inner ear, and of course the MRI I had didn't point to any causes for it either which helps set my mind at ease, even if it doesn't help my symptoms!  I've not been on the Xbox since.

Next week is busy on the health front too, back for another mammogram to check out an odd breast symptom; probably nothing, but you don't leave this sort of thing.  An MRI to check my rectocele in preparation for getting that surgically corrected and then my lipoma removal.   Mum is coming along to the first and last appointments, I'm very blessed with my mum.

I'm also starting a candida diet, I've bought 3 books, but the one I'm following is the Candida Crusher one by Eric Bakker who is a NZ Naturopath who's been treating candida patients for 25 years with a lot of success.  This week and part of next is the first step which is called Warm Turkey, you basically remove all the bad stuff from your diet slowly and then move onto a Meat, Vege, Egg, Yoghurt diet for 3 weeks or so before adding a few more things in carefully and starting the supplements to kill the candida slowly and replace the good bacteria.  None of it's cheap of course, but it's one of those things I need to do if I'm going to get healthy again.  Exercise will be starting again too, it went on hold while I wasn't feeling well and although I'm still not right, I have got back into the housework and a little rowing to hopefully help me feel better.

Oh, and the reason I think I have candida?  The list of symptoms matched me very closely, I have most of them, I had oral thrush as a baby and I've had problems with thrush most of my adult life.  Also add in being on the pill for a very long time, having had 2 babies, some very strong antibiotics and my very sweet tooth all pretty much guarantee I have it.  I really want to get past this, to get healthy and I don't think I was truly ready for this earlier.  Now I am, and Dh has said he'll support it as long as I keep exercising, this I can do, exercise is part of the programme anyway!

The good thing about all this sitting around feeling sorry for myself?   I've been weaving and knitting a lot.  The dining room loom is now empty and up on Trademe to find a new owner, which means Mairi (my Macomber loom) is closer to being fixed up and set up.

My fabric which has been fulled in the washing machine and made from carpet wool

 It will become a bag, the pattern is already bought, I'm making the Vivian handbag by Swoon Patterns

I also finished the plain socks for Ian, he's now worn them for 3 days straight and I'm going to have to steal them in order to wash them!

And last, but not least I'm now partway up the leg for my socks too! 

 The socks are my final WIP, I've frogged the big shawl.  I just hated knitting with the yarn too much to ever finish it, cobwebweight yarn is too fine.  The yarn will be something beautiful on a loom one day instead.  This means I can start my next project with no feeling of guilt, I need a cardigan!

Whoops, forgot about the blog!

I've been busy dealing with Scout fundraising, exercising, trying to get my diet under control (was doing well till a week ago when I fell off the wagon), dealing with a crook back and doing some sewing and knitting.

On the weaving front I've got the 8-shaft ready to do the final tie up, just have to get a warp on her.  The warp is ready to go, my back isn't.   The back issue is I think due to cutting out fabric and possibly my adhesion issues as well.
I'm doing my exercises to help it and seeing a Bowen therapist as well as planning on going to a myofacial release massage therapist (not the physio I'd been seeing) and probably an accupuncturist as well, but not all at once, have to do what I can afford.

On the sewing side of things I have cut out 2 pairs of waterproof trousers (both for Dh, but one was too small, so they're mine now), 1 pair of culottes for me, a shirt for me, sweatshirt for Dh, a zip up sweatshirt for G and jeans for me.  I've finished the 2 pairs of waterproof pants and started the sweatshirt for Dh.

The multi ones are Dh's, the black are now mine.

I've also got plans to make a 1745 outfit based on the Simplicity Outlander pattern.  I've not got a plaid as I couldn't find any I liked this winter, but I do have a pinstripe wool for the skirt (don't know if it's HA or not, but it looks good) and I'm going to use the green velvet I was gifted for the jacket and the stomacher.

On the knitting front I've finished a jersey, a pair of socks, cast on a hat, planned for a cardigan and won enough yarn to make a jersey in some alpaca/finn blend which is coming from the US, can't wait for that to arrive.  It was part of a KAL called the Fall Sweater Challenge.
The colours are naturals and it should look wonderful when finished, I'll either make another Strokkur or this pattern:

this one depends on whether I can get gauge.  If I can the main colour will be a dark brown and the contrasts will be cream and a lovely oatmeal.

I finished these socks for Dh, Ribby Socks

Wound 970g of yarn into two enormous cakes for a future project

Chose the yarn and pattern for the Fall Sweater Challenge, this was chosen before I won the yarn and will get started first, as soon as I finish the hat

And this is the hat which I'm knitting in the leftover yarn from the next project

This is my wonderful (and now well worn)  Eased jersey.   All in handspun on different bases (merino and Haunui from Heavenly Wools)

My other project is this lot.  I'm going to grow some sprouts for my summer sandwiches and I've got pea and sweet pea seeds to plant as well as a mesclun mix.

I might also have spent more time than ideal on the Xbox, but I enjoy it and I offer no apologies for this, except possibly to my knitting.

Sewing a Wrap

This is the Olivia Wrap Dress

I really like it, though I would have been happier if I'd finished it while there was still light outside

• Since this is the New to You Challenge I decided to go with one of the patterns from the Chill Out Capsule and since it’s winter here the Olivia Wrap Dress by Named  appealed.  I don’t have a wrap dress at the moment and I had the perfect fabric in my stash, so that was another point in its favour.
• The fabric was some merino/nylon from Levana Textiles bought off Trademe and in a perfect colour for me, I might have had to buy a little more as I'd used some for another dress and only had 2.4m left.
• The pattern was mostly good, the fit is good for me with no adjustments but I would do the pockets differently in future.  They are inset after the side seams are sewn, normally I put them in before that and the result would have been much smoother that way.  I stuffed up a little and cut the fronts out with the wrong side of the fabric so had to change which side the dress fastens to fix that as I didn’t have enough fabric to recut.  I also changed how the elastic in the waist was sewn in and just sewed it over the seam and through the dress rather than attaching it to the seam allowance; what can I say, I’m lazy and I figured it’ll be covered by the ties anyway.  Finally I made the opening for the ties smaller after seeing comments about that being too large on Pattern Review.
• I’m actually surprised at just how much I like this now that I’ve finished it and I think it’s going to be a staple in my winter wardrobe.  It fits well and is flattering too.  I want to wear it with my Caterpillar boots for some reason, and if it gets super cold I’ll wear a shawl to fill in the neckline.
• Overall this was a fairly straightforward make, but did have some tricky bits and the instructions while fairly good didn't always choose the best way to do things in my opinion.
  
  Next up for me is another dress, a pattern I've made in the past for a fit and flare style dress using some cotton knit that's been in my stash for aeons, plus finishing warping up the loom (almost done).

  I've also installed a new waste disposer as our one died and cast on a jersey in handspun; no photo yet as it's not far enough along but there should be one later this week all going well.

Finally I'm now waiting on a referral to a neurologist, my MRI has some areas of demylenation on it, MS was mentioned as a possibility.  I'm not worrying too much yet but am still working towards clean eating and adding some extra supplements after my next GP appointment.  Despite that news I've actually been feeling pretty good over the last week aside from the side pain which wont' go away; it's improved a little, but still there.  I'll take the little improvements I think.

All is well

At least as far as they could see everything looked nice and healthy.   A couple of biopsies taken, but I won't get results on those for at least 7 days.    I had to have the sedation in the end unfortunately due to having had a c-section.  They won't do it without sedation in that case.  As a result I'm still fuzzy headed, but at least I'm now fed!
I know I'm not with it, the number of times I've had to back space to fix my typing on this is huge!

Thomas is still working on cleaning out the garage, I can't help today, but will be back to it tomorrow.    Hopefully also happening tomorrow will be capture of that sodding cat!   If he is caught they'll neuter him, check for microchip and if not owned re-release him here.

No knitting today, I did get some crochet done while waiting for my turn.   Dishcloth is now half done, when it's finished I'll give it to my Mother-In-Law as the one I gave her several years back is very well used and I think she'd appreciate another.   I have tonnes, so don't need them.

Wheels are rolling

In more than one way.   Today was prep for the colonoscopy and it's gone better than I remembered from last time so far.  Even managed to spend time with Thomas clearing stuff out of the garage.  We don't have any storage facility yet, but we've shifted some of the more important stuff into the conservatory and some non-important stuff under the covered deck and in the kids play hut.    I did have to take a few breaks and wouldn't have wanted to be away from home, but all in all bearable so far at least.

First thing I'm going to eat tomorrow is one of these:

These are our first tomatoes of the season and I'm snaffling two of them!  Then it'll probably be back into the garage; boys will be installed on the Xbox to keep them safe.

At the moment this is what the garage looks like:

7.6m by 6m full of accumulated stuff; not all of it worth keeping

North-west wall

South-west wall

Hard to see in this photo, but between the wood boards and cardboard boxes at the back is one of the areas where we can see through to the outside of the garage; this isn't the most unstable wall either; can't get photo's of that, too much stuff in the way at the moment.

Got a phone call from the EQC/Fletchers chap this morning asking me to put in a claim for the December event seeing as it's made the garage worse.   I did that so now have a third claim number and have let him know the number so now it's just a waiting game.   Hope we have time to get storage organised, but that has to wait on the insurance company.   There will be a lot of stuff in the red bin, and we may have to send some to the tip.   Hopefully some will go in the skip when the garage comes down, not sure what their attitude is on that though.

We had help today though, Ray was very interested in what we were doing

helping me take tomato photos.

Day 13 - T shirt Tutorial as promised

First up you need a good fitted t-shirt pattern.  The one I have is from the first Ottobre Woman magazine, it's also available as a separate pattern from their Website (2nd from top on the RHS).   For me it's an excellent pattern with a good size range, different sleeve and neckline options as well.   Next time I might remember to add a touch more length, but otherwise it'll do me nicely.

Next choose your fabric; the fabric I'm using is a cotton/lycra blend with a dot print.  It has good recovery and the recommended amount of stretch; it's also fresh and summery.

My method doesn't come from the Ottobre mag or from Kwik Sew; it's just what I've ended up doing after following their instruction before now and choosing what worked best for me.

Now, in my machine arsenal I have a sewing machine (2 actually), an overlocker and a coverhem.   It is possible to sew with just the sewing machine, but I really do recommend an overlocker as well if you can manage it.   On this t-shirt I only used the sewing machine once.

First step for me is to turn up the hems.  I normally sew a 1"(2.5cm) hem but turn up 1 1/4" to ensure that my hem is properly caught on the wrong side.

This is my coverhem, she's a Janome CP1000.  I've threaded her up with normal polyester thread in the two needles and the looper is using woolly nylon; as you can see I've bypassed the tension disc for the nylon as otherwise it'll pull and the hem won't look good.  You may also be able to see I've used a permanent marker to mark the 1" mark on the machine as a guide.  I'm using the left and right needles, not the middle one; in fact I don't think I've ever used the middle one.  I start sewing at the beginning of the fabric, much as I do for sewing, but as there's no backstitch it's right on the edge; often I'll use a scrap from a previous project to start in the middle of just to get things going without bunching.

This is the finished hem on the back; as you can see with the woolly nylon being untensioned it's looking really flat and professional.  Once I've finished the first piece I then continue sewing the next piece.  I do this for front, back and both sleeves.  You can do this in the round, but I find it a pain to do and always seem to have problems with finishing the ends.

At the end I sew off onto a scrap piece of fabric, I then cut the threads between the t-shirt and the scrap.   I then leave the scrap under the foot for the next start.

My next step after separating all the pieces from eachother is to cut a piece of twill tape (you can use clear elastic if you prefer).  I cut it to the size of the shoulder seam; this lends stability so the shoulder won't stretch out of shape with wear.  Most RTW garments have this touch too.

Making sure the tape, front and back shoulder seam are even, and right sides together get ready to stitch.  You could pin it, but for such a short and straight seam I don't bother.  That and when using my overlocker the less pins the better.

Start overlocking.   If using your sewing machine for this you'll need to use the machine's overlocking stitch; or failing that stretch or zig-zag will also work.

Whoops, the twill tape moved towards the blades a bit here, however it will still do it's job and the fabric did not move so all is well.

Here you can see both shoulders are sewn and we're marking centre back and centre front with pins.   We will then match those pins and put the edges of the neckline together until we reach the side quarter marks; this is not the shoulder seams.  The back-neck is actually shorter than the front, so we want the exact halfway point.

see, pins together on top of eachother

and you can see as the fabric moves along the halfway point is onto the front, past the shoulder seam.  Mark this with a pin too.  Do the same on the other side; you now have 4 pins in your neckline dividing it into quarters.

Now it is time to get our neck facing ready.  Mine is cut from the same fabric as the t-shirt and is slightly smaller than the neckline on the main pattern.   I'm folding it in half with the short ends together, right sides facing eachother and this is where I use my sewing machine for the first time to sew a 1/4" seam.   This won't see any real stretch so I'm using straight stitch.   Can you see more permanent marker?   I love that stuff!  On this machine the marker is covered with clear nail varnish to stop it wearing off the enamel paint.

I am now folding the neck facing wrong sides together and putting the first pin at the seam; this is the centre back.  I will find the centre front by putting that pin on the left, folding it at that point and flattening it; the far right will be the centre front.

Now, just like on the t-shirt I'm putting those 2 pins one on top of the other and the far edges are the other 2 quarter marks.  Place a pin on each.

Here we are with 4 pins; doesn't look like much at the moment, but....

Now we match the pins on the binding to the pins on the garment; be very careful to make sure that your seam on the binding is matched to the centre back; I've done it wrong once and I don't recommend it unless you like undoing sewing; I don't, lol.

Here, I am sewing the binding to the neckline from the right side of the garment.   I start near the centre back, and as I go I stretch the binding slightly so it fits the neckline of the t-shirt.  You don't want to stretch the neckline as you'll end up with a wavy look; best to go slow on this.  Also make sure to remove pins before they get near the blade; use your fingers on that point as a temporary pin.   If a pin goes under the blade at best you'll blunt your blade; at worst you could injure yourself, or put out the timing on your machine.   Both are expensive to fix, and damage to either could be permanent; so instead lets just be careful.

Once I've finished the neckline I like to pull the overlocking tails through the seam to secure them.  I use a tool which is made from a knitting machine hook; this one is fairly fine.   The main one I use has a dowel handle, but I couldn't find it for this picture.   You can just thread them onto a darning needle and pull them through that way.

  If you wanted to you could use your coverhem to make the seam lie flat, but I've never found it to be a problem when I'm wearing them.   Now look at that, a nice smooth neckline all finished; that's the hardest bit over in my opinion.

Now for the sleeves; most patterns you'll find the sleeve will have 2 notches.  One for the shoulder seam placement and the other will be echoed on the main garment.   You can see here I'm pointing at them; if you don't match them the sleeve won't sit correctly.   Some patterns are drafted in such a way that the sleeve is the same both sides; Kwik Sew is one that does this; I find a sleeve like the one above tends to fit better.  Match those notches, and make sure you have right sides together.   If you find that your right sides are together but the notches are on opposite sides of the garment, then swap your sleeves to the other side; you've got the left sleeve on the right side of the garment, or vice-versa.

You can see here the 3 pins I use.  One at the side seam, one at the shoulder seam, and one at the notch.

Making sure your raw edges stay together and if need be slightly stretching to fit, carefully sew around the sleeve seam, removing pins before you get to them again; make sure all notches are in the right places.

There, nice smooth seam.   Best part, you're almost done!

For the side seam I don't pin at all, I match the 2 sleeve hems together, and overlock down the side, also matching the underarm seams together; the internal corner is the only tricky bit as you go around that underarm seam.  As you approach it, straighten the two edges, the fabric will form a bubble to the left,  but should be flat and go through the machine nicely at the edge.

Keep going, hold the bottom hems together, if need be put slight tension on to keep both sides even.   I do this right from the beginning so don't normally have any seam movement and my edges are more often than not even.  As you did for the neckline, pull the overlocking ends into the overlocking seams, and you're done!

Isn't it lovely?  It sits better on me, cos unlike Bonnie here I don't have gaps in my middle.  I think I might possibly have to use some batting to fix that problem.

I've started eating raw garlic; I apologise for any odour, but it's part of the campaign to get my bowel back on my side.  Garlic kills the bad guys, but leaves the good guys alone; I will still have to repopulate, but going by the reaction so far I think it's working, but although I'm going to the loo a few times it's still much better than the normal IBS version.   I figure that's my system chucking out the bugs that last nights half clove killed off.   Last night I swallowed half a clove in one piece with milk.   After a little research today I went looking for salsa and failed to find it; instead I'm using a dried tomato and parmesan dip (which is yummy!).  I've taken probably half of the garlic so far and I'm going to stop there as it was a big bit and I don't want to go too fast.