Sunday, August 21, 2016

Theo’s wife Jenni is in hospital for a “section” to produce the boy for whom the Hansel hap is destined. It must still be the middle of the night, there. The shawl won’t be much required in current DC heat, but I had better get back to work finishing that edging on the fourth side.

“Caesar” seems to have dropped out of American parlance. I would, myself, preserve the other half, and say “Caesarian”.  I’m not going to look anything up just now, but I have a vague memory that Julius was fond of his mother. If she really survived that procedure, two millennia before it became remotely safe, she deserves remembering.

I sped down the foot of the second Vampire sock yesterday, and must at least look in the Unknit Sock bag before I go to the hospital today. My husband is weak, and not doing very well with unappetising hospital food. It was better in the Royal Infirmary, he says.

And I moved on a bit with the Uncia. I’ve reached row 127. There’s one more set to come – the fifth – of 14 rows to be knit in one instruction. That is, “repeat rows aa-bb 7 more times”. Then I move on to the charts, which are clearly going to be more difficult but at least when I knit 14 rows, I’ll get 14 rows of credit on the chart.

I’m using SkeinQueen yarn for this, bought at the EYF for something else. It provides slightly more yards-to-the-gram than the specified Fyberspates, so I’ll presumably wind up with a slightly smaller product. Also, I’ve gone down a needle size, for comfort. I like the fabric I’m getting, a lot, and in the absence of a swatch (it was supposed to be over st st, for heaven’s sake) or numbers on the schematic, there’s not much evidence for guessing how far out I am.

I’m not worried.

Yesterday’s post was remarkably productive on the knitting front – the new IK, the anniversary issue. Sweep the slate clean, and there would be more than enough there to keep me knitting until the next issue. Including a Fair Isle vest from Mary Jane Mucklestone to be kept in mind when Scotland next win the Calcutta Cup.

[On my way to the Western General to visit my husband every day, I drive past the field where (I have heard) the very first out-of-India Calcutta Cup match was played.]

And yesterday’s post also included the book on Estonian knitting which Kate Davies was so enthusiastic about recently. Why is it in English? I think she’s right, that it’s very, very good. I hope I’ll have more to say about it soon.


In these sad times, I try to think of every purchase: is this something I would want to take with me, when we break up the house? I think Estonian Knitting might make the cut.

4 comments:

  1. Best wishes to Jenni and your husband. Is there something you could take in to him that would tempt his appetite, soup in a thermos, for example?
    I am glad to see you are getting back to your knitting. It is good for your mental health!

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  2. Is your husband allowed snacks? Could you
    pick something up from the store or a restaurant or make something yourself?
    Does he have positive and expectations for the future? Is he working toward a goal?
    It seems like you are looking to a future alone. No wonder you are sad and overwhelmed. Getting lost in
    knitting is a good strategy. Take care of yourself. Perdita needs you. Can your family spell you a bit on the weekends?

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  3. As a pregnant woman in America, I think it is most common to just call it a "C-section" these days ... at least here in Minnesota. I haven't heard "section" very often and do still hear "Caesarian section" sometimes. But (silly me) I had never bothered to think about what the name might actually mean ;)

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  4. skeindalous10:43 PM

    This is an extract from Wikipedia on the etymology of the term 'Caesarean section':
    he Roman Lex Regia (royal law), later the Lex Caesarea (imperial law), of Numa Pompilius (715–673 BCE),[99] required the child of a mother dead in childbirth to be cut from her womb.[100] There was a cultural taboo that mothers not be buried pregnant,[101] that may have reflected a way of saving some fetuses. Roman practice requiring a living mother to be in her tenth month of pregnancy before resorting to the procedure, reflecting the knowledge that she could not survive the delivery.[102] Speculation that the Roman dictator Julius Caesar was born by the method now known as C-section is apparently false.[103] Although Caesarean sections were performed in Roman times, no classical source records a mother surviving such a delivery.
    Must have been a tragic, horrific event.
    Thankfully we have progressed far beyond such today.

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