2020 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

PipneyJane

TwibbleDee said:

All covered under warranty.  And it’s ready to be picked up!

Yay!  That’s good news.  

TwibbleDee said:

First day back in the office after vacation.  Truck won't be fixed until next week.  We had to choose carefully what we brought back in my tiny car.  I have to do laundry today.  I did bring back my yarn, so I can continue with the whole knitting project.  Mom told me when she bought me the yarn and the needles that it better be a project that lasts me more than an afternoon. I'm pretty certain that even the people who've been knitting for ages take longer than that to do a pair of socks!  

According to the Yarn Harlot (and backed up by personal experience) it takes an average of 16 hours to knit a pair of socks.

- Pip

PollyWollyDoodle

I can vouch for the fact that it takes me a lot longer, but it’s not the actual knitting, it’s the long pauses in between!  I tend to start a pair of socks as a holiday project and then put them away when I get back… I’m going on holiday next week and I’m just thinking that I need something to do while I’m away, perhaps I can find the last sock project

Glad to hear it’s all fixed TwibbleDee. It’s a typical summer’s day here in Much Mending on the Borrow, i.e. overcast, grey and damp! I’m so happy that it’s rained after the extreme temperatures we have had. 

Laura, I hope everything is going okay and that you’re managing to do a bit of work on your “distraction project” in between nursing duties.

Laura_Elsewhere

Morning, all! 

Very glad to hear everything's covered under warranty, @TwibbleDee (that name does make me smile!)

My Intended is a lot better than he was and I am delighted that he's now trying to hide quite a bit of grumpiness As anyone who has done any kind of nursing knows, if they are bored and grumpy, it means they are getting better! Surgery on Monday, home on Wednesday and by Thursday he was able to sit up by himself from lying, and stand up from sitting, and on Friday he made it as far as the sitting-room to sit at the table for lunch. But it exhausts him, which puzzles him! he compression stockings are annoying him too... 

We had a completely unexpected visit yesterday from a community nurse, but unfortunately we didn't have all our questions ready as nobody told us she even existed round here. We are slowly discovering how many things he hasn't been told, and yes, we have gone through all the leaflets he was given. So we're doing a lot of looking online where other hospitals like Guys & St T's have put their patient info leaflets up online... 

Jacket now has its sleeves sewn in with first line of hand-stitching. Next I shall steam all round the sleeve-heads and then put in a second line of hand stitching and I can move onto the lining. 

basketcase

   Glad to hear your intended's recuperating.  If he stays grumpy, maybe threaten him with the new convalescent place in Nether Mending...?   DD's working from home so that we can self-isolate prior to an operation to remove a wisdom tooth that's very close to the nerve.  We were hoping to isolate in a cottage on Skye for a few days, but that's out, due to lockdown.  Oh well...   How are you doing with the injections?  I'd be dreadful - I'm bad enough with teeth.  In fact, I'm probably worse than DD is!

   The jacket sounds as if it's really coming on.  Can't wait to see the pictures.

PipneyJane

@Laura_Elsewhere - glad your Intended is on the mend.  Healing from an operation is exhausting.  It’s like your body has run a marathon without you noticing. 

I’m watching the VJ commemorations, as I type.  This is the first time I remember VJ Day getting much attention in the UK.  As an Australian, the commemorations are personal.  My mum’s brother was a POW in Singapore.  Japan torpedoed ships in Sydney Harbour.  There will be a sprig of eucalyptus laid on the war memorial in Little Mending, later.

- Pip

MrsCD

My flags are out for VJ Day, in the window box near the front door!
Our village had events planned for today and VE Day, but it all had to be cancelled. 😪

Laura_Elsewhere

MrsCD said:

My flags are out for VJ Day, in the window box near the front door!
Our village had events planned for today and VE Day, but it all had to be cancelled. 😪

My Dad says he doesn't remember any kind of celebrating of VJ Day at the time, no events of any kind, not even his parents putting their own Union Flag out, as they very definitely did for VE Day - he emailed this morning:

"my memories of VJ Day.  I have wracked my memory but I have none - neither has [my mother].  But some time after it I can recall going down with my parents in Southampton to see if they could identify the son of a friend who was returning from a prisoner of war camp in the Far East.  I don’t think they found him but I can recall how dreadfully worn and yellow the men looked - it was a really shocking sight. They’d come back by boat so presumably they’d had some little time to recover but it really shook me as an 8 year-old."

Combining that with several close school-friends dying when their (different) homes were bombed when Dad was 6, I can see why he grew up such a determined pacifist. Even a small child could see that war is something to be avoided if at all possible. He had lecturers at university in the late 1950s who had been PoWs and worked on the terrible 'Death Railway', as well. Mum was at a girls' school, but it was linked with a boys' school, and their headmaster had been in the Resistance during the War, and apparently made it clear that war was not glamorous nor to be celebrated. I know Mum skived school in the mid-50s to go on the Aldermaston 'Ban the Bomb' march, and she was not from a politically-active family, and she is incredibly shy and not at all independent, so must have felt very strongly indeed. 

My Intended is improving slowly - we nearly had to call medics as his catheter became a real problem, but eventually were able to identify the problem and sort it out. I won't go into details! My injecting technique hasn't improved - Day 1 remains the best when he literally never felt the needle go in, but Days 2 and 3 were quite a bit more sore, so I've been reading up on How To Give SC injections and hope to improve tonight! Another 22 after this to keep working on it  

My suit is having a day off, and I am knitting Dad's Xmas present instead. 

No spending of coupons but I really really must sort out this year's spending to date! My signature sitll claims no coupons spent but it is quite a few now!

thriftwizard

Laura, it is actually possible for them to prescribe the anti-coagulant in pill form; I developed such dreadful bruising after a week or so that they had to do that for me, so I was a bit stunned to be told that the pills were actually cheaper. They're certainly easier! But there must be some reason why the jabs are preferable.

Laura_Elsewhere

Someone else mentioned that so I told My Intended and he asked - but these injections are drastically more effective than any tablet for his specific situation, so he readily agreed to the injections. His digestive system is still not right after last week anyway, so I suspect any oral meds would be less effective. 

It isn't agony - thankfully! - but he is close to phobic about needles, so he gets very very tense and I think I have been being squeamish trying not to hurt him so I have been quick and efficient enough. Also the last two nights he lay down, and I think that made it far more difficult to hold the pinched midriff firmly enough to make the skin taut, which I realised earlier today is one reason for pinching the inch, so the needle goes straight in. So tonight I'll get him to be half-sitting as he was on the first night and I'll just pinch, stab, deliver and let go, and with luck it will be much faster without him flinching and me hesitating and so on! 

I have just made a list of the sewing, knitting and crocheting projects for which I have the necessary plan, materials, etc., and the unfinished ones - just the ones that came to mind readily - and I have enough to keep me busy for months and months, argh... 

maddiemay

Laura - this may not be useful,  once a week I put in 2 butterflies to my tum and inject 20 ml into each. I find it is more ouchy if I am warm, recently I have been holding a wrapped ice block from the freezer over my knicks for a while to cool the area down.  I once had a warm shower an hour beforehand and it was awful, I gave up and waited until the next day.  You can get a numbing cream, not sure if OTC though, my GP did not seem keen to prescribe, nor the hospital that trained me on the procedure