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Showing posts from October, 2013

Clandestine Midnight Gardening

It was a dark and stormy night..... really!   A shot rang out    sorry, getting carried away.  But it was a dark and stormy night here in the desert of southern California.  DH and I were tucked up snugly in our little condo in the heart of the small, gated community we call home here.  There was some activity in the green belt outside and we looked out.  Our neighbors were in the middle of digging a hole to plant a small lime tree.  Now there's an HOA here, with all the annoying rules.  You're not really supposed to dig up the lawn and plant stuff, but the President is the neighbor whose husband was digging the hole, she's a master gardener, and so there are liberties taken occasionally. We laughed about their little plan to add a tree to the community, and went back to what we were doing; listening to the wind howl and watching tv.  And I was, of course, knitting. A while later, I heard the sound of water gurgling.  We have a small fountain on our patio, but it had turn

The Handspun Sweater

This story starts about six months ago, when I attended the Hansen miniSpinner retreat in Port Townsend, WA.  It was a wonderful experience, and I brought home some roving that I purchased at Taylored Fibers ; some beautiful CVM/Merino/Silk.  I had asked Barry about CVM because I wanted to try it.  I had bought a little bit of it previously and it was awful to spin - lumpy and kind of sticky.  Barry told me that it was probably not very good quality and he kindly searched around until he located a quantity of this nice blend.  I bought three bumps; about 21 ounces. I started spinning it soon after I got back home and after a few months, I had it finished.  I decided to 3-ply it to try to make the fabric look tweedy, and also because it was spinning fairly thin.  When I finished, I was delighted with the yarn.  The judges at the Evergreen State Fair were, too, as I received an award for Class Runner Up for one of the skeins. The problem was that I only got about 750