When a Humerus is Not Humorous

I don’t want you to think I’m obsessed with my weight and appearance,1 but like most women I am self-conscious about certain areas.  One such area for me is my upper arms.2

I have always been self-conscious of the disproportionate fleshiness of this part of me.  Even when I was younger and thinner it was so.  But now that I’m older, and heavier, my upper arms are both fleshy and saggy.  Aging most certainly is not for the faint of heart.3

My new sundress

However, one good thing about getting older is becoming more accepting of yourself and your imperfections.  I would never wear anything sleeveless before, but now that I’m older I just don’t care as much.  Sure, what you see may not be pretty, but then don’t look, I figure.  So I recently bought a really lovely red sundress.  It’s long and tiered and fits beautifully,4 and, as calling it a “sundress” implies, it is sleeveless.

I’m not quite ready to go completely bare-armed, but I may get there.  Until then, I’m crocheting a small shrug out of colorful cotton to wear with this dress.  The yarn in a combination of pinks, purple, orange, and red.  I’m hoping the small runs of red in the yarn will be enough for the shrug to look good with and complement the dress.

Colorful shrug, in progress.

I don’t crochet a whole lot, but I was looking for an open, mesh-like design, and that’s generally found more so with crochet than with knitting.  The pattern itself is quite simple: a long series of double crochets with a few triple crochets at each end.5 I purposely chose a simple pattern so it would not compete with the colorful yarn, or with the dress.  I’m only a few rows in, and I’m not sure if I’ll like the end result, but it’s a quick and easy pattern so I’m going to stick with it and see.

1. If I were, I’d seemingly do something more than just write about it. [↩]
2. In case you didn’t take Sports Med in high school to get out of one semester of gym like I did, your upper arm bone, running from your elbow to your shoulder, is named the humerus. [↩]
3. But considering the alternative, I’m happy to be aging; I just hope to age gracefully, but only time will tell on that front. [↩]
4. Which is a feat in and of itself since I’m pear-shaped and usually require different sizes for my top and bottom. [↩]
5. When the shrug is finished and seamed, the triple crochets will make the sleeves a little flouncy at their bottoms. [↩]