My long absence

I've not appeared here for a while and for a variety of reasons.

• I made myself crazy over the holidays.
• My hard drive died, so I had no computer for about a month.
• I was so busy travelling and teaching that I had no energy once home.
• I'm not sure I had much to say anyway.

But now, here are some things I have learned from each of the above bullet points.

You can hurt yourself knitting!
Admittedly, my injury began in a fitness class, by working with a ball that was too heavy. But then I took on far too much for my Christmas knitting: sewing a 3-layered skirt in Dora fabric and knitting a matching pink pullover (for one granddaughter); sewing flannel Batman pajamas and knitting a fleece hoodie (for the second granddaughter).

Doesn't sound too terrible? I did all of this in two-and-a-half-days!!!!

What started as a small rotator cuff injury was massively aggravated by my power knitting. I could barely knit, certainly could not exercise, and could hardly wash my hair for about a month. (Did you notice my priorities in that list? from most important to least?)

ART (Active Release Techniques) chiropractory saved me, as it had done before. But this was a particularly persistent and painful injury--and I still have trouble sleeping on my left side--so please don't do this to yourself! TAKE REGULAR BREAKS when you knit, or work on a computer, or do any small repetitive movements. (I have also learned that my arms need to be supported when I knit, else my shoulders rise above my ears, and I get into further trouble.)

Be prepared for a computer to die!
Apparently, they can just do this--fall over and drop dead--without actually falling over, and without any warning. I was teaching in Phoenix when my hard drive just died! Nothing, nada, zip! And here's what I have learned.

• Back up everything . . . always . . . every which way you can. (DUH!)
• Have another way to access your stuff. (This one translates to Thank God I bought an ipad in December!)
• When you close your computer, do not move it until you hear all internal noises stop. (If you have an older computer, apparently there is some disc thing that continues cycling for a few seconds. If you move your computer while this is moving, you can damage your hard drive.)
• If your hard drive dies, do not keep trying to start your computer. This can make your data non-recoverable. (I was lucky that I left the poor dead thing alone and so got all my data back--which was a good thing because I had not backed up for some months.)

Nature wants to conserve energy
Apparently, it is the natural inclination if all living things--and maybe even non-living--to conserve energy. Hence the law of inertia. Hence my inclination to come home from trips and just sit and knit and watch TV. (There is a lot of good TV these days, but still. . . .) This was, of course, made worse by the fact that I couldn't exercise. Talk about energy conservation! It all made me very very lazy, and I am glad that all has passed. We do have to constantly fight nature's inclination towards sloth.

When one has nothing to say . . . 
. . . one should probably say nothing! I really had no new insights or revelations to impart, so I did not find the energy to write. But, I recently learned something that I'd love to share with you. (I apologize to all of you who already know this and are thinking what took HER so long?)

Knitting is thought to been been "invented" in the Middle East between the 11th and 14th centuries--an interesting offshoot of which was a wonderful 14th C fashion to paint the knitting Madonna.


Early knitting was all in-the-round--because most early knitting was stockings. There were some garments, but they were relatively rare and steeked.

(Here's the part I found fascinating!) The purl stitch was not invented until the 16th century! How amazing is that?!?! People had knit for, literally, hundreds of years before discovering how to purl!

And even so, there wasn't all that much purling going on. Most knitting was in-the-round stockings, socks, hats, mitts, and gloves. (The exception to this would be shawls, because Victorian women certainly loved their lace work.) Sweaters were not a major knitting product until relatively recently--not until the 20th century. But once they came on the scene--whether produced in factories or in the home--most of them were knit-flat-and-seamed.

So even though the purl stitch had been discovered in the 16th century, it was not widely used until the 20th--almost within our lifetimes! I found that quite fascinating, especially as someone who is hard-core set against in-the-round sweaters.

I do hope to learn stuff, discover stuff, want to share stuff . . . and not be away for so long again. But thanks to all who wrote to make sure my long absence was not the result of bad news or ill health. I appreciate your concern more than you know.