Shoshiplatypus

What’s On Your Workdesk this Wednesday?

As usual, no activity on the actual desk, but I have managed to tidy up a small amount of the chaos in my studio. I have been continuing to work on my needle book project from the comfort of the recliner.

Tiny Carpets

The cross-stitch for the cover of the first needle book is now completed, with the background filled in with black.

I have run a line of back-stitch around the edge of the embroidery which will help when making up the needle book. I will be able to sew into each of these small stitches.

Here is a detail. I have added stitches in red at top and bottom of both tiny carpets to indicate a fringe – these are pretty small and not that visible but I think it was worth doing.

You can see that the single strand doesn’t give full coverage, which is unfortunate. Two strands were too bulky. When I first mentioned this, Kyla commented on that blog post that steaming it might help fluff the threads up a bit. I haven’t had a chance to try this yet, but it’s certainly a good plan. It will need blocking anyway as there’s a small amount of distortion from the pull of the cross-stitch and I shall do it then.

Some of the threads seem to give better coverage than others. The yellow, cream and green seem pretty good, and the red isn’t too bad, but the navy and black aren’t so good – it may just be that they are very dark and show the contrasting light-coloured fabric more. I’ve got loads of stranded cottons from many different sources (quite a bit inherited from old ladies who have died and whose relatives have passed craft stuff on to me, knowing my interest) and some are better quality than others.

I am planning to make up the first needle book before I get too far on the second one, just to make sure I’ve calculated the number of stitches for the spine of the book correctly, and that it comes together OK. I have yet to work out the design for the back of book #2, but I’ve made a start on the tiny carpet for the front, the design of which I showed you last week.

A Jumper for a One-Armed Bandit

I’ve now completed the first sleeve of my Purple Circles Jumper, and I’m really pleased that my graph paper pattern has worked perfectly and the sleeve is a good fit. I have rather short arms and usually tend to make things too long! I can now begin to pick up the stitches for the other sleeve. For the sleeves, there is a length down to about the elbow with no decreases, and quite a lot of stitches, so that part is pretty slow to knit in 4-ply, but thereafter, there are regular decreases down to the wrist and the more you do, the quicker it gets! I am using my usual ultra-stretchy casting off method to finish the ribbing cuffs. Once the second sleeve is completed, the whole thing can be blocked and sewn up, and then it can go in the drawer ready for the winter.

It does look rather odd with only one sleeve!

Kitties

Ruby’s turn to star in this week’s show. Here she is having a moment with Daddy in his office. It looks as if a lot of hard work is getting done, doesn’t it.

Droopy Roobs with dangly arms.

Ruby’s Lost Leg

The other day they were both out in the garden and it was very hot. Ruby was walking slowly across the lawn towards Lily and suddenly flopped down mid-stride and lay there for several minutes until she suddenly realised, “Oh dear, I seem to have left my leg behind.”

Want a Good Laugh? Shoshi’s Lampshade

As I have mentioned before, I refuse to wear a mask as I can’t bear anything over my face. I won’t go into the other reasons but there are a lot of problems with them. Instead, I found a clear plastic face shield online – to see a picture of this, you can see Lynn’s blog post last week where she is modelling the identical one. I don’t like the words “Face Shield” emblazoned across the front – very unattractive and somewhat superfluous as well, as it’s pretty obvious what it is! I therefore attached a piece of tasselled trim over the writing with some double sided tape. OK, it makes me look like a lampshade but I don’t care! My hubby laughed and said it looked like one of those naff costumes from an old Carry On film. I have only worn it once so far – we went for our six-monthly check-up at the dentist last week and had to be muzzled up till he began looking inside our mouths (logical?!) and he laughed at me and called me Marta Hari!!! He and his nurse both agreed that these face shields are actually a lot better than fabric masks and were quite impressed that I’d got one. It doesn’t feel too restrictive at all, and it doesn’t steam up my glasses. I don’t go out very often, but at least I’ve now got something to stop them putting me in prison for non-compliance!

Food

Again, no recipe of the week this week as I haven’t done anything new. It’s been too hot for a lot of cooking so I’ve been taking things out of the freezer and knocking up salads. The first of this year’s apple crop is starting to come in now and we’ve still got quite a bit left from last year in the freezer, so it’s stewed apple and custard for pudding most days at the moment, to try and eat them up and make room for this year’s lot! The freezers are pretty full at the moment as it is. I’ve been making quite a bit of soya milk to keep up with the custard demands. I vary this with ground rice which makes a very nice alternative. I also make yoghurt with the soya milk and that’s nice with fruit as well.

Nutrition

As usual at the dentist, we had a good discussion about various health issues. Peter, our dentist, is such a lovely man and is always interested in my current state of health as he knows everything I’ve been through. He was very impressed with my hubby’s weight loss, noticing quite a difference since his last visit, so we had a bit of a discussion about whole-food plant-based living. He has some very interesting friends, including the founder of Trio Ostomy Care (from whom I now get quite a few products because of Peter’s recommendation). It turns out that he is also a close personal friend of Tim Spector, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King’s College, London, and an expert on the gut microbiome. He has also done a great deal of work on gene expression in identical twins. Peter told me I should read his book “The Diet Myth” which is now on my reading list but I haven’t got round to ordering it yet. Peter’s wife is a diabetic nurse and is a great fan of Tim’s, and is often in trouble with her colleagues because she doesn’t follow established protocols for the management of type 2 diabetes but instead recommends treatment by diet, and is seeing many of her patients steadily reducing their medication. This is all in line with everything I have discovered in recent months about the power of the whole-food plant-based lifestyle.

I became interested in the gut microbiome two years ago when I suffered a severe post-operative infection which proved intractable until my third cocktail of powerful intravenous antibiotics. When I came out of hospital I was on the oral version for several weeks and I was concerned for the state of my gut bacteria. A friend got me onto fermented foods and I am continuing to make yoghurt every few days (now from soya milk rather than dairy), and kombucha weekly, and we consume these probiotics on a daily basis. Nowadays, of course, I am also regularly eating a diet rich in prebiotics (high-fibre foods which feed the gut bacteria). Animal-based foods contain no fibre at all, and reduce the diversity of the gut flora, apart from their many other deleterious effects on health. The study of the gut microbiome and its vital importance in all aspects of health is a new area of research so there is still a great deal to be learned. Most of these beneficial bacteria live in the colon, and I am very interested in discovering what happens when one’s colon has been removed. We had a talk by a dietician at our local ileostomy group last year and I asked about this, and whether it was possible that this vital microbiome could migrate to the lower end of the ileum (small intestine) and she thought that perhaps it might. I have enquired in the comments section of various YouTube videos on the subject but have not received any answer so far. Peter suggested I contacted Tim to ask about this.

Tim does not advocate a specifically whole-food plant-based diet and does include animal products, and in particular unpasteurised cheeses, in his recommendations. This is not something I agree with because of the many health problems associated with dairy (the presence of hormones, steroids and antibiotics in cows’ milk, and the fact that cheese is 70 percent saturated fat), not to mention the ethical and environmental problems with dairy farming and animal agriculture in general. I have not had time to read up on his work much yet, but I have watched a couple of his YouTube videos with great interest.

Our Weight Loss

We both lost another pound each this week. If I lose another couple of pounds, I will have lost a total of 5 stone since I started a diet back in 2014 (I think it was then – we came back from holiday and I was horrified when I nearly broke the scales…). At that time I went on the 5:2 diet invented by Dr. Michael Moseley – a form of intermittent fasting where you eat a maximum of 500 calories on two days, and eat normally on the other five days in the week. I lost a lot of weight over several years of doing this, and then discovered whole-food plant-based eating, which is not “a diet” at all, but a way of life – and which obviates the need for any calorie restriction – in fact counting calories is quite unnecessary and counter-productive as nearly everybody fails on a reduced calorie diet. It results in yo-yo dieting and ultimately in even further weight gain. I have continued to lose weight slowly since abandoning the 5:2, and eating as much as I want. The secret is calorie density. For healthy, sustainable weight loss, you need to eat a plant-based diet rich in complex carbohydrates found in high-fibre whole-foods – these have low calorie density and bulk you up and keep you going, and stop you feeling hungry, as opposed to calorie-dense foods such as refined carbohydrates and especially oil and fats. People often say, “Stay off potatoes – they are really fattening!” when this is absolutely not the case. Potatoes are extremely nutritious, fibre-rich and satiating. It’s what you put on them that causes the problems – frying them in oil, adding butter and sauces and dressings rich in fats and sugars. I know several people who eat loads of potatoes all the time and are as skinny as laths.

I am now only 10 pounds heavier than I was when we got married. Carry on at this rate and I shall regret having given my wedding dress away – it would have been fun to see if I could still get into it!!

Whatever I do, my stomach always sticks out, though. Part of this is due to my fairly substantial parastomal hernia with a poo bag on top lol! After my tummy tuck/third hernia repair operation (if that ever happens… still waiting and still not a whisper from Exeter) it might be a different story.

My hubby lost another pound this week and has hit another milestone, coming down below the 14 stone mark for the first time. He is feeling highly chuffed and I don’t blame him.

This lifestyle works. On all counts.

Clothes

Shoshi’s a vision in red this week. Time to share the first of my Romanian blouses with you. For many years following the revolution, my hubby visited Romania annually, doing charity work, and each time he went, he brought back gorgeous textiles, clothes and other artefacts. They have a unique style which we both love. Sometime I must get round to making a Flickr album of all the photos of the cultural inspiration I gained on my own visit in 2003.

Anyway, here I am, wearing this red embroidered blouse, with a red maxi skirt which is at least as old as the asymmetrical grey top I was wearing a couple of weeks back. It’s a bit faded, unfortunately, but it hasn’t stopped me wearing it. It’s made of fairly heavy weight pure cotton. I have also had the black elastic belt for oh-so-many years and for many of those I couldn’t wear it because it wouldn’t go round me, and even if it would, all it would have done would be to accentuate how fat I was in those days lol!! Anyway, it’s now getting a new lease of life. Red socks to complete the ensemble this time, along with the same red bead necklace you’ve already seen, and a pair of white shell earrings.

This blouse is the thickest one I have got, with the heaviest embroidery. Here is a detail of the embroidery. The solid red areas are really thick like carpet with a patterned texture, and there is decorative stitching on the seams (unfortunately not visible with the way I’ve got my arm).

Have a great creative week, everybody.