She was looking better on Thanksgiving than earlier in the week, but had problems over the weekend. I talked to her Monday night and we planned for me to come on Tuesday morning and stay with her while my father did some shopping and other errands. She was feeling a lot worse as the morning went on, so we took her to the emergency room. They admitted her to the hospital after discovering she had a very large kidney stone. She is in a bad demographic, elderly and female, but I think the medical people are taking it seriously that she is no whiner and if she says she is in pain she really means it. The ER staff were amazed that she wasn’t screaming.
Anyway, they managed to make her more comfortable and the kidney stone was removed last night. We are hoping that she recovers quickly.
She was not happy to have go back to the hospital after being home just a bit less than a month, but accepted that the problem needed immediate attention.
Other stuff
I warmed up some leftover beef stew for breakfast today. It contained carrots that I pulled from the garden over the weekend as well as tomatoes I picked in October and brought in to ripen. I harvested some Italian parsley too. Not many carrots made it this year, but the ones that did were huge and very tasty.
I finished my first ever top-down knitted raglan pullover, washed and blocked it over the weekend. It was one of the things that I took to show mother not knowing how ill she was. I think the reason I didn’t try top-down years ago was that I didn’t like the look of the double increases. I made these with a twisted loop in mirrored directions on either side of the increase stitch and they turned out nice, noticeable but not glaring. I also decided a few rows down from the neck edge to add a 24 stitch panel of moss stitch. The yarn was fairly hairy and a heather gray, so didn’t want to do anything too elaborate. Another factor was that the amount of yarn available, singles from EBay that I had plied using my spinning wheel, was limited.
I used standard directions otherwise, like Circular Design From the Top Down in Vogue Knitting pp. 192-3, © 1989 Butterick Pattern Co. with the exception that I cast on then decreased stitches where the sleeves were separated from the body stitches to create diamond-shaped gussets under the arm. This makes the fit comfortable and improves wear.
seamless raglan sweater
This is a good pattern to use if you are not sure how far your yarn will go. After putting the sleeve stitches on threads (and casting on for the gusset) I knit down the body until the ball of yarn ended, then picked up and finished the sleeve stitches down to the cuff. I then finished the body using all the yarn except for what I used for swatching.
I plied a homespun single in a darker gray with a lace weight black two ply yarn to make the yarn for the cuffs. Saved trying to match colors exactly and it made a nice contrast while keeping the neutral tone.
