A different eye candy

Looks just like my Runty (sniff!)

http://www.wimp.com/catdolphins/

Earthquake!

It was weird.

It was 5.8 on the Reichter scale -- the biggest one ever on the East Coast. We were all sent home afterwards. At first we were told not to come back to work until further notice because there may have been structural damages to the building. Anyway about seven we got words the building was okay and we should report to work as usual.

Well this is on the wall of the stairwell right next to my office:

People on the West Coast might think we are wimps, but it is pretty scary!

The engineers say the building is structurally sound. I hope they are right!

Feling fun

When you wash fleece, you take time to make sure that you don't accidentally felt the darned thing.

Deliberately shrinking your wooly knitted thing is entirely different, and so much fun!

Last year I made myself a pair of Felted Clogs. I felted them at my friend Ann's house since I don't have the top-loading washing machine needed for felting. She liked them so much I decided to make her a pair for her birthday this year.

Here's the "before" picture:

And just to give you a perspective. That's my foot in it:
After two cycles in the washing machine on hot wash and cold rinse, with a tennis shoe thrown in to help with the agitation:

Presto!

Magic!

Just don't try this with a sweater!.

A labor of love

But once was enough.

I just finished washing about 3.5 pounds of raw Cormo fleece.

This was a beautiful, half fleece that I got from a Cormo farm in California. The fleece was very clean since the animal is covered year-round. Still it was a tedious, labor-intensive process of picking out the veggie matter, dirt, then soaking in very hot water, then rinsing, and finally setting out to dry.

Cormo is hard to get commercially because the fleece is so soft it usually does not fare well through commercial processors. But if you wash it yourself the result is very rewarding.

Fluffy white cormo ready for you:

I tried putting it through the drum carder but did not like the result so I will be hand flicking this (all 3 pounds of it!) with a dog brush!

Yep. A labor of love.

On a totally unrelated matter my Vietnamese neighbor brought us a flower last night. I have no idea what it is but it only blooms once a year and it opens at nine p.m. And at nine p.m. on the dot it opened.

Very pretty. Very fragrant. She gives me one every year.

More spindle eye candy

This is my latest acquisition: a Bosworth mini. She is made from Red Cedar and weighs in at 17 oz.



The tomatoes are from my garden. They make a lovely background, don't day?