This is my new design: Oxygen Tank Cozy. It was created out of necessity. Now that I'm living in such an urban and densely populated area, I'm experiencing parking troubles. I'm constantly stressed out about finding a parking spot. The neighborhood is packed with cars and there's new condos going up all over. There are no parking spots and I find myself driving around and around looking for a place to put the car. Being that I'm a home birth Midwife, I need to be able to get in my car with all my equipment and go fast. I figure there are Midwives in
Manhattan, so they must know how to deal with these issues. I've decided to consolidate all my birth bags into one huge birth bag for easy traveling.
The problem that arose with my new system was that the Oxygen Tank would slightly rattle around in it's new container. Problem solved: it get a sweater---or "cozy". The other benefit is that it looks kind of covered up when it's in peoples homes. The typical home birth aesthetic is that the medical equipment is "out of sight, out of mind". The tank usually is set aside with a baby blanket over it; covered, but easily accessible. Now after it's unpacked at a home birth, it can look friendly and warm in it's sweater. I know, I know...it sounds silly, but home-
birthers don't think of birth as a medical event. If it means putting a sweater on the medical equipment, so be it.
The Oxygen Tank Cozy was knitted with a solid colored yarn and a self-striping yarn. Both were hand spun left overs. Knitting in the round, I alternated the solid and the self-striping every two rows to get the effect.
When I lived in Montana I obtained a whole fleece from a young woman named Mandi. She had owned an Icelandic/Navajo-Churro crossbreed named Schwartzie. Beloved Schwartzie fell into an ice pond and died. Her first (and only) sheering was all that was left. This whole black fleece has been in my possession for several months now and I have finally begun to process it.
I have decided to comb out the long course fibers and then I will probably drum card the soft undercoat. The photo above is a charged hand comb and the photo below shows the results of combing this fiber. The little ball is the combed course fiber ready to spin. The fluff on the left is the "seconds" - the soft undercoat. I put quotations around the seconds because this is the soft part that I'll actually have more of a use for. I'd like to blend it with something in the future.
