Alpaca Spa

It is overwhelming to see how many unfinished knitting projects I have. And there are so many more I want to knit. I was determined this weekend to finish a project so I worked on my Monkey Socks , I finished them today! Yeah. I’ll post pictures on Ravelry.

I have not worked on the mittens I started. I think they are beautiful, but I am not enjoying doing the color work. Maybe it is because it is in such a small scale, but it takes so much coordination and it makes my hands hurt. I really do want to finish them, but I can’t work on them very long, and in the mean time I am wearing either ugly gloves or my mittens with a hole in the thumb. I do have fingerless mitts that I knitted, but when the temperature is 10 degrees and the windchill is even lower, fingerless gloves do not cut it. I have been looking for another pattern that will be a quicker knit. Thrummed mittens are a consideration. Just plain stockinette stitch with bits of roving. Sounds warm. (And quick).

We are heading to Las Vegas on Thursday to attend the National Alpaca Owners Association Fiber to Fashion event. There are seminars on topics such as Postpartum and Neonatal Cria care, setting up a farm store, marketing, fiber processing, and judging. There is also a fashion show (no, not dressing up alpaca as someone at work thought). I am excited to go. It will be a short trip (4 days), so I don’t know how much of Las Vegas we will get to enjoy. I do hope to do some networking and make connections for my “next big thing”. Alpaca, fiber, yarn, fashion ……… where could I go with that?

Speaking of Alpacas. David and I went over to the farm this morning (when it was sunny, it is snowing again tonight) and tried to get pictures of the alpacas against the backdrop of snow. Some of them will be moving to Texas next year, they are owned by David’s brother. We thought it would be cute to get “winter” pictures of them. It was freezing. We did get a few good pictures. Here is something funny that was going on when we were there:

 

 This little one, her name is Quasar,  is doing Jitterbugs hair. She looks like she is eating the hay, but she was tugging on her hair. She kind of made a spike hair style. It struck me because I was headed to have my hair cut ….. however, Robin did not use her mouth!!!!

So I am trying to decide what to pack for projects for my trip. I will take my Landscape Shawl , but I’m not sure what else. The Landscape Shawl is a little boring, but is a good back up project. I am also bringing yarn for a Fidget . I have a hank of The Great Adirondack Yarn Company Berkshire in Chili Peppers colorway. It is a Wool/alpaca blend (what else). This looks like an easy project that will result in a warm neck garment. I have a hat I made years ago in a red hand-dyed colorway that will match perfectly (as perfectly as any hand-knit items have to match). I always worry I will get bored or will not like a project I bring with me on a trip. I am, after all,  in a plane for 4 hours, so I will also pack ,in the suitcase, a sock pattern and yarn for the trip home, if necessary.

Is this a problem all knitters have when they travel? I am sure I will not finish both of these projects, but I feel compelled to take one more, just in case. How much knitting does an average knitter take for a four day trip? I am going to have to find space in the suitcase (that I am sharing with David) for this extra project. And what if I buy stuff? There are going to be vendors there – yarn, blankets, clothing. I think I’ll slip in a canvas bag, too.

Here are some more pictures from this morning:

It is so funny to go to the field with a camera. The alpaca come to investigate, especially the little ones. The little one getting a bottle, her mom did not produce enough milk, so she has needed supplemental bottles. She is growing just fine.

I will try to take pictures at Fiber to Fashion (although I am taking my little digital camera, not the Cannon), so I will post pictures when I get home. I will also post what I finally decided to knit ……. maybe I will have a finished object to show!

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase” Martin Luther King, Jr.

Cynthia

Birth Story

K. was seen by one of my partners during the night. She was in early labor and wanted to go home. My partner was sure she would see her again. I spoke with my partner in the morning but did not hear from K. until early afternoon. It was her second baby. During her first labor she had a short first stage but then pushed for 3 1/2 hours. Her baby was not in a great position, posterior, which usually means a long second stage.

When K. spoke with the nurse in my office, she was contracting every 2-3 minutes. When she got to the hospital, she was uncomfortable but the contractions had slowed a little. This is an interesting phenomenon, women’s labor will often slow a little when they get to the hospital. It is the fear of the unknown or their bodies getting used to a new environment. (Did you know, when a deer is giving birth in the woods, if frightened, her labor will stop until she can move to a safer place?) When I checked her, K’s cervix was a little more dilated than the night before, she was 4 cm. She and her husband walked around for awhile. The next time I saw her she was resting on her right side and reported her contractions were coming closer again.

A half hour later she asked for Nubain. I checked her and she was 6-7 cm so she decided to get into the tub before getting any Nubain. Her husband sat in the bathroom with her. I could hear her breathing softly with her contractions. After being in the tub about an hour, K’s sounds were deeper. She felt more pelvic pressure. I checked her and she was fully dilated. Her urge to push became stronger so we helped her out of the tub (the tubs are not set up for waterbirth at this hospital).

When K. got back into bed, she stayed on her hands and knees for awhile, until we decided to break her water. She rolled over to a semisitting position. I broke her water and the urge to push became greater. She pushed with great power but was frightened because during her first birth she not only pushed for a while, but also had a bad tear. I let her find her own rhythm and when her baby was crowning had her stop pushing.

One of the reasons women have bad tears during childbirth is because the head is born too fast (another is pesky little hands and arms that are born with the shoulders) so I usually have women stop pushing the last few contractions.

Baby E. was born at 4:55 in the afternoon. She did have her hand at her face, in the holding cell phone pose, but mom only had a small tear. Mom and baby (and daddy too) were happy and healthy.

After so many years seeing babies born, it is still a miracle that continues to amaze me.

“When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.” Indian Proverb.

Circle of Safety

I have a goldfish pond in my garden. In the winter the fish are suppose to hibernate deep in the pond, below frost level. I keep an opening in the pond to allow gasses to escape, so during cold weather I have to check the pond, shovel off a spot and open the pond with hot water. I keep a pump running in the spot so the water is moving and does not freeze over hard. This is what I saw yesterday:

Yup, that’s a fish. I have seen him periodically this winter. He is the largest of the eleven fish that are in there. I guess he did not get the memo about hibernating.

Here is my Monkey sock, first one almost done:

And I cast on for a mitten from the book Andean Knits:

I ended up going down to a 2.75 mm (size 2) needle.

As I was beginning this project, I realized, even though I have been knitting for a looooong time, I have done very little color work, few cable projects and almost no lace. I have been knitting in the safe zone. Knitting easy projects. I was listening to Sticks and String podcast this weekend, in his essay titled “We Choose”, David talked about this also. He played a clip from JFK which really rang true. The concept of choosing to knit something hard, with the possibility of failure, challenges oneself and allows one to grow as a knitter. I have been doing project because they are easy not because they are hard. It is time I challenged myself to do more difficult knitting.

I really like some of the patterns in the new Vogue Knitting (Winter 2007-08). I like the triangular shawl with beads on page 69. It is done in Cashmere 7000 (Tahki Stacy Charles). I am not sure I would risk such an expensive yarn but I bet it is beautiful. I also really like the Hooded Pullover on page 79. It would be a great winter into spring sweater, and includes cables. The other one that intrigues me is the Striped Coat on page 94. It is knit with Reynolds/JCA Lite Lope double stranded. Each strip is black held together with a bright color (blue, green, yellow and red). It looks fairly easy to knit, but the colors give it a dramatic look. 

In reviewing this post before publishing it, I thought of the fish in the photo as being a risk taker. He is outside the “circle of safety” but seems to be thriving. In midwifery school we were taught to stay within the “circle of safety” and I guess I have incorporated this into all of my life. Maybe it is time to explore outside the circle. It could be in my knitting or in other aspects of my life. This is my challenge to myself: to step outside the “circle of safety” and to see where it takes me. (Of course in my work as a midwife, I will stay within the circle).

“And the time comes when the comfort of staying tight in the bud becomes more painful than the risk to blossom” Anais Nin

 Cynthia

Happy 2008

The new year has begun. What will 2008 bring for me, my family and friends, and the world? As many people do, I think of the new year as a turning point. A time when you can reflect back on the past year and look forward to the new one with a new perspective. As I said in my previous post, I do not usually make New Year resolutions, but I do make short term and long term goals. What do I want to accomplish this year? Where do I want to be at the end of 2008? I listed a few things I want to do this year, and I will periodically look back on that list, but what else? Anything? I don’t have these answers today. 2008 will bring change to my life, some of it within my control and some not. I want to try to look at all change with a positive attitude and embrace the challenges change brings.

December 2007 was one of snowiest in history in New Hampshire. The official total was 44.5 inches. And we had more snow on January 1st – another 8-10 inches! It is beautiful……. and cold. Today it did not get out of the single digits. (I think administration in my office forgot to pay the heat bills, it was cold there all day today). They are predicting some warming early next week.

In the middle of all this cold and snowy weather, my handknit mittens decided to blow out a hole in the thumb. I have been trying to find a pattern I want to knit, something more than plain-jane mittens. Maybe I’ll even try gloves. I started a pair of mittens from Andean Folk Knits by Marcia Lewandowski, but even with a dk weight yarn (the pattern asks for worsted weight) they were coming out too big. Because it has a pattern in the mitten, I will need to figure out if I can use less stitches or get a smaller gauge with smaller needles (I was on size 3 us). I am not sure what the problem is. There is another pair of mittens in the book that uses a size 1 needle with worsted weight also. I guess I’ll do a gauge swatch with the yarn I want to use (Classic Alpaca from the Alpaca Yarn Company) with different size needles and see what happens. It just seems that 60 stitches for mittens is a lot. They both are beautiful though.

I am working on my Monkey Socks. I turned the heel on the first sock but dropped a stitch and had to rip back to almost the start of the heel. This was at lunch today.  I started the second sleeve on the Woodlands Tunic, I put the first sleeve on waste yarn so I can get both sleeves to the same point to decide on the cuff – there are two choices.

I will take more pictures of my projects. I got a new camera for Christmas: a Cannon EOS Digital Rebel XTI. I am so excited. I want to take more pictures of the alpacas also, maybe enter one in a photo contest at one of the shows. I have been playing with it but have not down loaded any pictures yet to my computer. I like the idea I can erase bad pictures before I have any printed. And I think I will still print a lot of the pictures, just like with my old 35 mm, because I like pictures I can hold in my hand and put in a album. But I also like the ability to crop and edit the picture to obtain a specific look. My local camera shop, where the camera was purchased, has a service on line where I can send my pictures and they will be ready for pick up later in the day. How cool is that.

I have done my 2007 statistics. I attended 80 births, 6 of which were C/S (both primary and repeats in labor). That is an 8% C/S rate!!. I am very proud of that. Four of the C/S were for arrest of labor, 1 was from breech in labor and the last for fetal intolerance of labor in a woman with a previous C/S. I have not attended any births since before Christmas because I took time off. I am on call this coming weekend, so maybe there will be a nice birth story to tell.

Time for a cup of tea and curl up with the new Vogue Knitting (and to move to a different part of the house so I do not hear the card game going on downstairs, it is amazing some of these men have been playing cards every other Thursday for 30 years!!!!!)

 ”There is no sin punished more implacably by nature than the sin of resistance to change.” Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Cynthia