Scarves abound.........

............. where patchwork fabric fears to rear its head

I am a bit of a scarfaholic on the quiet - I own dozens in different colours and styles and use them to accessorise my outfit each day, particularly when the weather is chilly

These two took, at most, two or three hours each to knit up with only 7 stitches on the needle - a slightly awkward knitting style but the quick growth is very rewarding - the colours are a little bleached, the plain one is a much richer juniper green - photography obviously isn't my strong point!

Long time readers of my blog may remember back in October 2009 that I showed you the quilt I made for me dear friend Sue, a breast cancer patient, who was about to have a mastectomy - if you click on the word 'quilt' above and scroll down the first picture is the quilt I made for her

She had a very successful operation followed by radiotherapy and has made a wonderful recovery throughout this past year

As she started her journey with pretty large breasts she decided that when she had the combined mastectomy and breast reconstruction operation she would go for a smaller end result

Of course this meant that, immediately post-op, she was sporting a somewhat lopsided look with the unaffected breast about an F cup size and its reconstructed neighbour a neat and manageable C cup - so the diagonal look has been de rigeur for about 12 months

Early in December the time came to go in to have the untouched breast reduced to match

The op went well and she was so proud of her new boob

That is until she returned just before Christmas for her post-op check

Obviously because of her history the hospital tested the tissue they removed at the reduction

To her shock and great disappointment she was told they had found another tumour in this tissue and the long and short of it is she will go back into hospital on Tuesday for a full mastectomy on the second breast

Of course the good thing about all this is that this tumour is a third the size of the original and wouldn't have been visible on a mammogram for probably another two or three years but she did say in hindsight she wished she hadn't let them talk her out of a double mastectomy in the first place

However it would seem someone's hand was on her shoulder when she originally plumped for a smaller reconstruction at the first op

In her usual inimitable fashion she also found one other positive out of all this - at least she won't have to ever have another mammogram

What's that saying about clouds and silver linings? :)

So, as her favourite colour is cerise, I whipped up this little number to cheer her up as she heads down this next portion of her journey