Samples

From left to right: shetland wool, merino, doggy hair, silk. I will start fixing them tomorrow so I can take a peek at them under the electronic microscope. I'm not sure about using soysilk or not. After all, it is an artificial fiber, even if it's made from a sustainable source. I'm more curious about angora or alpaca. Do you think the shop would be willing to let me take samples this small without buying anything from them?

Of course, I have also collected other materials so I can learn different techniques with different types of tissues, but I don't feel like showing any bug corpses here.

Thanks for all the get well wishes about my mother. She's really on her way to recovery. Knitwise, I fixed the length of the lacy tee so the waist shaping fit my waist. Well, it turns out that the lace band at the bottom gathers in the middle anyway. This pattern is designed so that the waist is exactly at that height. My meddling with the pattern makes the band crinkle at my hips in an ugly way. No wonder I'm no designer. Guess what I have to do now.

As promised...

Here's the picture of the swap socks before I sent them in:


Liggy says they fit, I'm glad she liked them. Of course, I also got something in this swap, from Steloide:

    

The pattern is Thirassia, by Mae. They fit great, and the little case will be very useful for crochet hooks and dpns. Those soft candies reminded my husband of "sugus", a type of candy he must have loved as a kid because they are disappearing fast!

My return to California was perfect. My mother is very stable and recovering little by litte. She's no longer connected to an IV line and the new oral antibiotics seem to go well with her.

This Summer I will learning how to operate a Scanning Electron Microscope. I'm already collecting bugs and spiders, but I also plan on taking a peek at some wool, silk and doggy hair. I wish I had some alpaca or mohair, or any other interesting fiber, but I don't, and my finances don't allow for any new purchases. But if there's a fiber addict out there with a few unspun strands to spare let me know. I promise to post any pictures I get.

Where was I?

Gee, It's been a long time. Too many things have happened since my last
entry. The computer died again, the spouse brought it back to life, I
had my final exams, and my mother got sick. That part is still going
on: She has leptospirosis and my father had been taking care of her all
by himself, but I decided to come and help him out. The treatment is
tough: 8 injections per day, mostly through an IV line, which more or
less blows every five days and she must be taken to the ER to start a
new one. The last one blew yesterday night, but the doctor says we do
not need to start another one since she's finally eating on her own and
he needs to switch her anyway to oral antibiotics in a couple of days.
So she'll have to suffer all her injections on her bottom for the time
being, and after that two more months of treatment.





These bugs are nasty, they attack your liver, pancreas and kidneys. One
doctor insisted that she needed to be admitted to the hospital, but I'm
glad my father insisted on keeping her at home. I'm pretty sure that
she would have picked up several other infectious diseases by now.





Not that she does not have enough complications already. Her blood
pressure is high and we need to keep it down with more drugs. All these
antibiotics killed her natural flora and now she has a yeast infection.
Her bottom is sore from all the shots and from being bedridden all this
time.  But these are all easy to deal with compared with the main
infection.





My mother is much better now, so I'm planning on going home next Thursday. By then she will not need any more injections.



All this time I did not read other people's blogs, but I did find out
that Liggy received the socks I made for the swap. I took a picture of
them before sending them and I will post it as soon as I go back to
California.