Another chain?

This is a shorter one so far, but Alison blogged about her running, and today I ran (using the same Cool Running Couch to 5k programme.)

And this time – no sore-hurty-shins – not yet, anyway. So, my next run is scheduled for Wednesday… watch this space…

Whoo hoo!

I’ve just taught spinning to 3 and 4 year olds!

It’s Art Week at the children’s school, so I offered to do something – and was asked for something for the nursery class.

So I took my wheel (it’s a little odd to carry a spinning wheel along the road tucked under your arm, but no-one commented) and some fibre.

They loved the wheel – most of them managed the idea that looking is done with your eyes and not your fingers… And no-one could find anything sharp to prick their fingers on to make them sleep for 100 years.* One boy was convinced that it was the wheel from a pirates’ ship, and wanted to know where the telescope was. (One of the things I really do like about that age group is that when they ask that sort of question, it’s genuine, they’re not trying to be funny.)

Then I made them all wiggly worms: take a small sliver – show that if you pull the ends, it comes apart. Then put some twist in – pull it again – it doesn’t come apart so easily. Twist some more, fold it in half, (so it plies back on itself), stick googly eyes on each side – and there you have a wiggly worm:

(prototype – I didn’t have any googly eyes at home )

*It always bugs me – exactly HOW did Sleeping Beauty prick her finger on a spindle? I have a spindle, I have a wheel – there are no pointy bits for finger-pricking on either of them.

Not just knitting...

... I’ve been sewing too:

Ruth has been pestering me for a nightdress and I couldn’t find any off-the-peg. Strictly speaking this is a dress pattern (Simplicity 3749), but it works fine as a nightie. I cut the second one out this afternoon…

Results

Thank you for all the comments to my last post – I’ve toyed with taking it down – I was very tired, very stressed and (it later transpired) going down with a stomach upset of my very own.

Anyway, the results are through – he’s definitely Coeliac. I’m just glad that the biopsy results tie in with the blood test results. There is no doubt about it – he needs a gluten-free diet, and that’s it. And we can do a gluten-free diet.

In knitting news – how cute are these?

The famous Elizabeth Zimmermann Baby Surprise Jacket, pattern bought from Knit n Caboodle with matching Saartje’s Bootees. The main yarn is Mama E’s C*EYE*BER Fiber sock yarn – Beauregarde.

I love the way the two patterns seem made for each other (go garter stitch!) They’re for my cousin’s baby who was born last Sunday – must go and get them in the post…

Biopsy done

I hate, hate, hate, hate, HATE seeing Adam being put under a general anaesthetic. But now that’s three times. And he coped with the needle this time. It was a much deeper anaesthetic than he’s had for having teeth out, and he took quite a while to come round. (Bless him – one of the first things he said was “They’ve not not the biopsy yet.” – Oh yes they had – and I’d had to wait a good hour or so for him to start waking up before they let me see him – yay for knitting for it’s meditative properties!)

We’ll get the results on Thursday, but he’s now gluten-free – after eating 8 pieces of toast and 3 biscuits once he’d properly woken up!

I’m pooped – I think I slept a lot worse than he did last night. But it’s all over now. Sleepytime…

Book Swap

A big thank you to Carla for the lovely parcel she sent me for the book swap I signed up for. (The deal was that you should find a pre-1960 book with a knitting reference, make a bookmark – knit or embroidered – put it in the book and send it off.)

Lookee what I got:

If I was a more competent photographer I’d have not put the skein the wrong way up, but hey, you can all read upside down, right? Yup, it’s my very own skein of Socks that Rock! And isn’t that bookmark just the cutest? And it all arrived on the day I’d been moaning to John that I’d run out of things to read – perfect timing. A big, big thank you to Carla!

Eat it and weep...

This evening we ordered pizza for dinner. Well, Adam ordered it (or, at least, he tried to order it online with my help, but it didn’t work, so I had to phone the order through instead, but it’s the principle of the thing) and he, Ruth and John ate it. But this is probably the last time that Adam will do such a thing.

Last week I took both Adam and Ruth to the hospital to be tested for Coeliac Disease. I’d finally had enough of being fobbed off with being made to feel like a fussy mother whenever I queried why a boy with a good diet and good dental hygiene needs to have 3 extractions and a filling by the age of 6 1/2. So at the end of the Easter holidays I took the pair of them to the GP – I did rather overdo it – “I’m Coeliac, my mother is Coeliac, my father’s brother and sister are both Coeliac, my cousin is Coeliac, another cousin’s son is Coeliac – we have a very strong family history, I’m concerned about Adam and I would like them both tested.” To the GP’s credit he called his secretary straight in and got me to dictate the family history and referred the pair of them to the paediatric gastroenterologist at the local hospital. When we got there last week she was great – she was the first official medical person to agree with me that Adam’s teeth could indeed be linked to being Coeliac, and agreed to test both of them. The blood tests (full blood count, test for active Coeliac Disease and genetic test to see if they carry the appropriate gene) were performed brilliantly – Adam is not a fan of needles, but with one person to ‘do the needle’, one person to hold his arm still, one person to entertain him, me to provide a lap to sit on, and yet another person to entertain Ruth in the waiting room, it all went very smoothly (as it did when Adam and Ruth swapped places).

So, the results. The consultant phoned me this morning. Her opening gambit was that I am “very astute” – Adam is indeed Coeliac and Ruth’s results were normal. I don’t know Ruth’s figures, but on a test where ‘normal’ means 0-6, Adam scored about 87. And it’s not a test that gives false positives. The “gold standard” for Coeliac diagnosis is a biopsy (swallowing a tube so they can have a look and take samples), so he still needs to have that done, and until they do that (which will be under sedation – it’ll be the ‘good drugs’ ) he needs to keep eating plenty of gluten.

I’ve explained it to him, and he’s fine. A bit sad, which I’m quite glad about – it means that he’s taking it on board, but also quite excited to think that he’s going to be like me – no more “Mummy’s treats” – I’m going to have to start sharing! Ruth is more upset about it – I think a combination of being a bit jealous that he gets to share something with me, and genuinely sad for him that he’s no longer going to be able to share food with her. I’m hoping that her genetic test comes back negative, as if it does we can relax about making sure that her ‘gluten load’ stays high. If the test comes back positive she will still be at risk of developing it later, in which case I would rather she were eating a normal quantity of gluten so that any symptoms aren’t being masked – a small quantity of gluten could be enough to do damage without showing up properly in tests.

And me? – I’m a bit shocked. I thought I’d be fine about it – after all, I’ve been eating gluten-free for over 25 years – it’s not as though I need to reorganise everything. But it’s a very different matter dealing with it for myself and dealing with it for a 6 year old. Fortunately I know that there is a member of staff at his school (one of the loveliest nursery assistants you could ever meet) whose son is also Coeliac, so I know that there is someone there who can act as an advocate for him. And he takes a packed lunch anyway, so we don’t need to try to train the kitchen staff. Mainly though, I know that it’s fine – being a diagnosed Coeliac on a strict gluten-free diet means being able to live a full and active life. BUT it is a total pain in the backside. Eating out, or going on holiday requires a whole lot more planning. And it is tedious having to explain it all again, and again, and again, and yet again. And I hate that my baby boy is condemned to a lifetime of it. I know, I know – it could be so much worse, and that we are incredibly lucky to have so much understanding of it and support within the family, but if I was given a free choice I would choose that he not have it.

Knitting content!

I have two main WIPs at the moment – one of which is having to take a bit of a back seat as I need to spin up some more yarn, and although my back is much better, I’m still taking it very easy. But it’s the really exciting one, so I’ll start with that one anyway:

(click to enbiggen and enjoy the slubby glory)

Cardigan – designed using a mixture of Ann Budd’s basic sweater pattern from The Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns and the waist shaping from Knitting Daily. Since this is to be a fairly bulky cardigan I haven’t gone for completely figure hugging shaping (at least, I haven’t intended to – it’s not finished yet… ), so there should be about 1” +ve ease over the hips and bust and about 3” +ve ease round the waist. (The piece in the picture isn’t blocked, so it’s rolling like crazy and you can’t see the shaping.) I’m knitting it up with handspun Shetland from bluefaced (there is a problem with ordering stuff from the website, but if you email Andy he will get back to you.) Most of it is undyed, but I’m doing garter stitch edges using the fibre I dyed at Liz’s.

Secondly, partly because I need to get more yarn spun for the slubby cardigan (it’s designer slub – I’m loving it), partly because I have raging startitis, and partly because having bought all that yarn from Stash I need to use it. (Big confession – not only did I misremember when I posted before – I didn’t order 8 balls of the Alpaca Silk, I ordered 10, I also went back on the site and ordered more – 2 more balls of Cathay and 5 more of the Alpaca Silk. Well, it would be foolish to run out, wouldn’t it?) So I started Sylph. Having read around on Ravelry I saw that a number of people have made it using DB Cathay, and they had found that the twisted stitch pattern was almost invisible (possibly because of the multi-stranded structure of the yarn). I swatched, and not only discovered that I needed to go down a needle size, but decided that I could see the twisted pattern, and I rather liked it, so I was going to go ahead and use it. It wasn’t until I’d got further than this far:

that I realised just how much it was biassing. (But lookee – you can definitely see the twist pattern!) I ummed and ahhed for a bit, then decided that although it might block out, it would always bug me, and if it was always going to bug me, it was time to rip it out. So I did, and I’m now back to just an inch or so above the faggotting pattern. Sigh.