Roller Coaster Ride Continues

 

Life's roller ride continues...

There are so many people who are struggling with their particular roller coaster ride of life.  I am slowly pulling myself out of the funk I got into after the brain surgery.  I'll be clear, here, I'm still struggling with the fall out of the fall down.

My life, already truncated by avoiding the plague (don't @ me telling me covid is gone away - it isn't - and what reporting anyone can find about it tends to minimize it, and refers to 'after covid' - drives me crazy.)

Last week I went shopping because my house sweater was falling apart, and we donned our masks before we left the vehicle, in part because we are only just over a nasty cough I caught in the hospital (thank goodness it was 'only' a cold, not covid!), we walked over to the store.

As we reached the door, a man coming out did a second take and grinning at the two of us said 'So, you're afraid of the fresh air?'

Doug and I both said 'yes' and ignored him.  

This week I have the six month check up at the cancer clinic.  I have to be honest here - after the year I've had I am seriously worried that they are going to tell me it's come back.  :(

Yesterday I turned down a zoom presentation with a presentation date of autumn 2025, spring 2026.  After the surgeon told me last week that I may never, entirely, recover my speech, I turned it down.  The little bit I was making doing seminars wasn't enough to cover my studio expenses, but it helped.  Now even that has been cancelled.

However, I have a supportive friend who offered to alpha read for me, so I have been in touch with a magazine and suggested some content for them.  That, at least, is something on my own time, and with my friend alpha reading feedback, I feel I can keep writing.

To all those people are struggling with the current conditions (including the politics), I send light and love.  If you see someone struggling, give them a hand, if you can, or even just a virtual hug.  And remember, lighting someone else's candle does not diminish yours...

Opinions

 

Most 'hobbies' seem to come with rules/opinions formed by the people who practice the hobby in question.  All of them have 'opinions', and sometimes those opinions are at the complete opposite to each other.  The problem is when those 'opinions' turn into concrete 'rules'.

Every craft has this phenomenon, and generally they are held fast by the people who follow them.  Every textile craft I have practiced (and I have done quite a few) has those hard and fast 'rules' that some people follow religiously and others ignore.

It is why most times when I answer a question I begin by saying 'it depends'.

I answer questions with the life experience I have using my 'standard' techniques.  Frequently I will answer a question without specifying what *I* mean in the context of *my* work.  And the questioner will respond with *their* context, and then I will have to say to them that in their circumstance they need to do what gets them their best results.

Even wet finishing - I will sometimes clarifying that there are circumstances when no, you don't have to wet finish, but if you are ever going to get your cloth wet, you should find out what happens to it when you do that.

I will explain that no, you don't have to apply a hard press, but you should try it to find out what happens if you do.  IOW, sample.

The sample above (from Magic in the Water) has not been hard pressed, but I have applied the press to a sample to find out what happens.  Instead of the rounded 'furrows' you get irregular pleats.  

So I try to remember that not everyone is doing what I do, their 'reality' may be different from mine, and to give as thorough an explanation as I can, depending on the medium I'm using to communicate.  And yet, I still see people sharply disagreeing with me about certain techniques or tools I say I use.

But here's the thing.  I don't care what someone does.  They asked a question, I answered what it is that *I* do.  They then have to choose what is best for *them* - whether they weave with a particular yarn, or warp their loom front to back/back to front, hold their shuttle underhand or overhand.  When someone asks me for my answer, I give it.  I don't come over to your studio and force you to follow what I do!

Because I have preferences that someone else may not.  Looms are different, yarns are different, people are different - we all have to figure out what works and does not in order to create the cloth we want to produce.

magic-in-the-water

Nostalgia

 

This somewhat out of focus photo is of my craft fair booth from one of the shows I used to do every year.

I confess I am somewhat nostalgic right now because the big craft fair here is happening this weekend.  And I miss seeing the people that would come by to look at what I had made and - potentially - buy something.

But this year, more than ever, I am grateful that I didn't have to load up everything, drag it to the hall, then stand all day making 'nice'.  It would have been impossible with the brain bleed and how little energy I have.

So, I am grateful my things will be there, but as part of the fibre arts guild booth.  Truth be told, I still have lots, but I cannot take over the guild booth - they must display the work of ALL the guild members, not just one or two.

The guild members have been making things all year and they will have a nice full display - this I know without actually going down there.  The local guild members are enthusiastic and talented.  I'm happy they will take my things, too.

But I need to keep selling things.  So, once the show is over, I guess I will have to go through my stuff and start posting things to my ko-fi shop.  My rate of production is way lower, compared to even my 'retirement' weaving rate before the bleed.  But my body is recovering and I'm able to pick up the pace a bit.  

Not to mention I still have ideas I want to explore, and yarn that needs weaving up.  But as I look around my store room, there are actual spaces on the shelves, and I've put some things that were on the floor up on the shelves.  I have wider and fewer 'goat trails' through the studio.  Still too much stuff, but when I remember what my studio looked like in November 2019, I have done a good job of weaving down the yarn.

One of the hardest things to do selling online is to get good colour representation.  Especially during the winter and the string of grey dreary days we get now, as climate change ramps up.  But maybe next week after the appointments with the cancer clinic (please, please, please, let the cancer continue to be in remission!) and the eye doctor, I'll be feeling well enough to start dealing with trying to upload more items to my ko-fi shop.

My daily list is very short these days because I have so little energy.  Everyone tells me all my energy is going into recovery, and after talking to the surgeon, I am now realizing how lucky I am and how I need to let my body take all the energy it needs so that I will recover (more).  The surgeon said the biggest rate of recovery will happen in the 12 months after the injury, and then it will slow for about another 12 months.  After that, what I have and where I am, is what I will live with.  And that level may be less than where I was when I fell.  In the meantime, I need to work at recovery as my priority.

So I rest, even when I'd rather be doing *something*, because I need my body to heal as much as it can.  And now I have been officially been told it will be about 24 months, I need to learn to be patient (ha!) and let my body do what it needs to do.  Because this injury isn't the only thing I need to factor into my life, it's just the sauce on top of what I was already dealing with.

I'm hoping to write more - in part because I have a good support person who will help me - and it seems I still have things I want to say.  And writing is the best way for me to say them.

With that, I'm going to start my day and go weave for 20 minutes.  I'm up to two 20 minute sessions a day (unless I have too many appointments), hoping to hit 45 minutes a session by the end of the year.  I'm going slowly, trying not to rush or push.  And hoping 2025 will be a better year than the past few have been.

 

Threshold

 

One of my 4 books 

I 'self' published this book and two of my others and posted them to blurb online for people to purchase either as a pdf or as a print version.  (The 4th is available in my ko-fi shop available as pdf only.)

For the first time since publishing The Intentional Weaver, I did not make enough sales to get a payout from blurb for the past month.  (There is a certain level under which they hold on until you have sold more.)

I'm not complaining.  It just took me aback because I budget that minimum payment (more if I'm paying attention) to help cover the expenses to help pay for the things I do for free for the weaving community.

Like pay for things like my website, purchase the security certificate which somehow got dropped (but is now purchased). and the other things that go towards studio expenses (like the insurance policy, due this month.)

If you like my book(s), you can do me a huge favour and let your weaving friends know that you think it/they is/are useful.

Since I spent the past 8 weeks largely trying to find the energy to do something, anything, I did not do the pr or marketing that I usually do.  And, well, not reaching the payout threshold means I have no income from book sales for October.  

I posted a couple tea towel designs in my ko-fi shop recently, so if you are interested, do take a look?

In the meantime, I am s-l-o-w-l-y getting back to the loom.  I was told on Wednesday that most people who experience the significant level brain bleed that I did, do not get discharged to go home but rather to rehab.  For months.  I now understand why so many medical professionals have been patting me on the shoulder and telling me how lucky I have been.  Since I was thinking how *un*lucky I had been to have a brain bleed, I didn't take their comment very well.

After talking to the surgeon I understand how lucky I have been in a whole other way.  I will go on to weave, even possibly to write, with the assistance of a friend willing to go through my writing and help me with the grammar.

I still have problems with communication - at times whole words keep dropping out of my brain.  But writing is 'easier' because I can re-read and correct multiple times before I hit 'publish'.  And I think, with the help of my friend, I will get to the point that I will be able to write for publication again.

As for the zoom seminars, I rather suspect I will not.

So - if you want to learn from me, the best way is to buy some (or all) of my books.  Next best way is to read this blog (for free), or join School of Sweet Georgia or The Handweaving Academy.  The SOS has launched a 'free' blog and today one of the ones I wrote for them last spring was published.

If you want to join SOS this link provides a small discount off the price of joining.  

If I can find the link to the SOS blog post that was posted on Facebook this morning, I'll post that link in the comments.

Perspective

 

There is nothing like a little perspective to adjust your attitude...

This morning I had a telephone appointment with the surgeon who operated on me in Vancouver.

I have spent the better part of the past 8 weeks essentially kicking the floor boards and shaking my fist at the sky at the unfairness of being felled (literally) and weighed down with yet another health issue.

But this morning I found out how close I had been to having *no* more health issues.  Oh, I knew how serious it had been - sort of.  I knew that if I hadn't had the surgery it would have gone very badly for me.  What I didn't know was how truly lucky I had been.  That all those medical people who kept telling me how well I was doing were simply amazed how well my recovery had gone.  And how the recovery had been expected to be much more difficult.

When I asked about speech therapy, the surgeon essentially said that by the time I could get an appointment with a therapist, I would be further along in my recovery than a therapist would be seeing.  

He also said that essentially a person with that degree of bleed (17mm) would not leave hospital and go directly home, but would be expected to be discharged to a rehabilitation facility and scheduled for months (not weeks) of intense therapy.

He advised me to live my life as well and fully as I can because healing will come with using my brain, even if that means I don't have the words I need on my tongue.  We talked about my weaving and he encouraged me to *slowly* take up my life again, writing, weaving etc.  

I still don't feel like I want to stress myself with doing remote presentations, my speech centre has been in the middle of where the damage happened, and truthfully he told me my speech may never recover to what it had been.  He encouraged me to keep playing Scrabble and whatever I enjoyed, but to not sit around waiting for recovery because recovering my life will be through living it.

To that end, I will carry on with the proto-article I had been planning before all this happened.  I have a draft just needs a tiny bit of tweaking to make it look 'better' (to my eyes) and the samples I wove on the current warp have confirmed my speculation about needing to change the density to 32 epi.

I have - quite literally - been given *another* chance to live and to weave, perhaps to teach, some more.

Thinking Things Through

 

Linen from Lithuania, Tex 56 or Nm 17.9

I received a gift from someone in the form of linen produced in Lithuania.  I chose the fine singles because my end product was intended to be tea towels, and I thought this yarn would make a lovely weft.

Since I really liked the end product, I bought 5 more kilos in dyed white.  (I know I'm supposed to be stash busting, hush!)

I proposed a project for the new magazine and while it hasn't been approved yet, I figured it would be a good idea to do some experimentation to go with the idea I had to weave.

The singles linen is finer than 2/16 cotton, but that was what I wanted to use as the epi.  However, the idea I had for the article was to weave with two singles in a double bobbin shuttle, but 36 epi - my current warp density - wasn't going to 'work'.

Yesterday I got to the end of towel #6 and instead of weaving one more towel, I wove a couple of samples with the 2/16 and two strands of the singles linen.

My initial thinking is accurate, it looks like.  It's the wrong threading/treadling and the wrong epi, but I was looking to add more data to my decision making, and it's looking like the 32 epi that I expected would be needed, is.  Just based on the difference in the density, the weft is beating in too loosely to square, so it looks like 32 is going to be a better match.

Normally I wouldn't fuss too much about a weave that doesn't beat 'square', but there are times where it becomes important.  On this project it's optimal, if I can get there.

I won't go into that here now because if the project is accepted for the magazine I'm not supposed to talk about it before it is published.

But I thought it was fair game to talk about the steps leading up to my actually going ahead with this idea.  And, who knows, if they don't feel it is appropriate for them, I can go into the details here when I get them done.  Because now that I've done this much work on it, and exploring the factors that are being considered during the design process, I might as well share, if no where else.  

Season Change

 

Somehow, without my noticing, it has turned into deep autumn and winter is not far away now.

The other morning the windshield was covered with frost.  Which isn't a surprise at this time of year - in fact it is 'late', truth be told.

This year winter, for me, is going to be another level of challenge.  I did buy boots with built in studs in the soles, so hopefully I can get around.  Plus I have been using a cane, to make sure I don't lose my balance.  I have a handicapped parking pass, which will help, but there are other things that are going to take a while to resolve - like the swelling in my brain, the fact that there is swelling in my head, above my ears so that my eyeglasses don't sit properly on my face - which makes seeing properly difficult.  The assistant at the eye doctor's advised me to wait until the swelling goes down before I get my eyeglasses re-fitted, which makes seeing...annoying.  Fortunately my closeup vision isn't too bad, but it gets dicey at a distance - and is why I am not driving now.  I'm seeing a massage therapist who is working on the whiplash (mild, thank goodness, but still) and that is slowly getting better, too.

When I talked to the pain doctor a couple of days ago, he understood that I was even more compromised dealing with injury to the lower back, and now the upper - and was sympathetic.  It is such a relief to have found a pain doctor who doesn't ignore the other things going on in my body.  And to have him be supportive about the tweaking on the new medication.

I am trying very hard to pace myself *slowly* in building up my strength again, but I admit it is hard.  Next week I talk to the neurosurgeon who did the surgery, and hopefully find out a bit more.  What to expect.  If I have a 'deadline', then I am happier if I don't.  Something to aim for.

This is not the way I foresaw the winding up of my life so I am having to change my expectations.  Something that is always more difficult when it is pressed upon you.  And I have no idea how far my recovery will go.  

So, I guess the next few years (?) I am going to have to practice the 'no expectations' way of life.  And work at that attitude of gratitude.

Just so long as I can keep weaving...