Rough Week

Although I had every intention of cutting this warp off and re-sleying it to weave shawls, this week has not been a great one, and even though I'm not thrilled with the beige linen on the red warp, it's good enough for therapy weaving so that's what I've been doing.

Since my brother died, my bp has been erratic, fluctuating sometimes wildly and not responsive to the standard medications. We finally figured out that part of the problem was that I am allergic to Lipitor and since my cholesterol is not high - in fact my levels are well within target, given my Coronary Artery Disease - I was able to stop taking it in October.

Unfortunately, my bp has not gone to anything remotely near to target, and on Tuesday it spiked to scary high levels for no reason that we could figure out. :(

The good news is that I was able to get in to see my doctor early on Wednesday, and he added a 3rd bp medication to the chemical cocktail I've been taking, and this one actually seems to be working. But I haven't been feeling particularly well. When my bp sky rockets like that, my brain ceases to function, and problem solving or any sort of challenge is beyond my capacity to deal with effectively, so instead of cutting the warp off when I finished the red linen, taxing my brain with designing new tie ups and treadlings for gorgeous shawls, I opted for therapy weaving. :}

While the beige linen isn't nearly as dynamic as the red linen, it looks okay - and face it, therapy was the number one priority this week, with stash reduction a close second.

This morning I spent more time in waiting rooms getting lab work dealt with. My doctor is now on the search for what the medical community calls "secondary causes" to see if there is some other physical problem creating all these high numbers and wild fluctuations. Fortunately I have a large stack of library books as I've needed them to wile away the time spent in waiting rooms. I find waiting much less onerous if I've got a good book to read.

Finished Jim Butcher's "Cursor's Fury", read Terry Pratchett's latest, "Nation" and this afternoon polished off Linda Barnes' "Lie Down with the Devil".

There are four more library books in my bag (we won't discuss all the books I own, but haven't yet read!) Sharan Newman's latest "The Shanghai Tunnel", Jim Butcher's "Captain's Fury", "The Apostate's Tale" by Margaret Frazer, and "Death Comes for the Fat Man", the latest by Reginald Hill.

Oh - re: the towels - in the photo you can see the hems for two adjacent towels with two picks of red thrown as a cutting line. When the cloth beam comes off the loom and gets put into the inspection table, I'll cut the towels along the line and serge them before wet finishing.

The good news is that I've nearly used up all of the 20's lea beige linen. If there is any warp left when the linen is done, I may re-sley for shawls, or I may just weave off the rest with some cotton flake or other yarn that wants using up. Goodness knows, I've got lots!

Since there is a lot of both the red and blue cotton left, the next warp will likely be something similar, but this time dedicated to just shawls.