sheep and stuff


See I actually DID go to MDSW even if you can't tell it from the blog. I make my amends by displaying the cute sheep pictures I took.

So in knitting news, and despite the total lack of posts I have been knitting, here's my yoga bag which I did back in the early early spring. Notice the color matching to the actual yoga mat. This does all kinds of wonderful to my centerednes during yoga I must tell you! Although I'm afraid it also means I'm possibly shallow which rather flies in the face of the whole yoga process of becoming peaceful and above such things!



Here's the sweater for Jennifer (Rick and Patsy's daughter) and Dave's baby girl, Catriona. It doesn't show the color well. It was a lovely dull pink going toward palest orangey. The design didn't work out like I thought it would but I bought the yarn on Monday, designed and knitted the whole thing by the shower on the next Sunday. I was sewing buttons on 30 minutes before church! So we shall forgive a little wonkiness.



Finally, here's the coolest story. So the shawl that never ends still isn't ending. I was looking for yarn and thought I'll price cashmere, just for the lark, just for the laugh, knowing I couldn't possibly afford it. The cheapest I found it at my normal yarn sites was $45 a ball and I needed five balls--yeah, I know.

So I googled "cashmere yarn" or something one final time just to see what came up and I found a blog entry entitled "cashmere cheaper than wool." I'm interested yeah? So I go and this woman and her friend have both claimed to have gotten lovely cashmere for dirt cheap. I check out the website. It's a funny little stripped down site, just cashmere and a few weird things, and they claim to be in Inner Mongolia selling cashmere direct. And I quote: "We have established direct connection with yarn factory to provide you with unbeatable." No labeling, no middlemen, so "Thus saves cost dramatically for you." Now, how could you resist that?!

I could get all the cashmere I need for the shawl for $35, less than for one ball from anywhere else!!! AND shipping is a flat $4.99 no matter what you order. COME ON!! What was there to loose? I happily placed my order thinking I'd never see the yarn or my forty bucks again. Then, five weeks later, this arrived. (it's worth clicking to enlarge, the stamps are gorgeous).



And inside...well I can't prove it's cashmere unless I find someone with a diagnostic lab they're not using, but, baby, it's cashmere to me!!

Trouble

According to Google maps, it is 1.4 miles from my house to the oldest running knit shop in Houston. And would you believe I didn't even know that when we bought the house? I just discovered it yesterday.

The View From Where I Sit



Welcome to my new house. My new house? No. Someone else's house that I'm staying in for the summer. This is the view out my bedroom window. The pool is on its way to being ready, not quite there yet. I LOVE the pool house. LOVE. On mild nights, I might just sleep out there.



My fireplace, which is what I'm facing while I lay in bed. I wasn't too enthusiastic about the empty brick hole all summer, so I planted some flowers in it. The mirror is not mine (it came with the house) but I love it as well. Not as much as the pool house, but almost. The mirror also needs to be hung...I'll get to that eventually. Other great things about my house: comes with 2 awesome dogs, cable tv, air conditioning, and privacy. I might just get the fiddle out this summer, because noone will be able to hear the horrible sounds that I produce with it.

And, a knitting spoiler/teaser: Angela (my little sis) is getting married this summer so I'm making her a wedding gift that is low budget yet still special. Her favorite color is red, she picked the colors.



Sorry for the long hiatus, it's been sort of busy with moving, traveling, and starting new jobs. I'm assisting a curator on an exhibit and working nights as a hostess at a local "upscale casual" Italian restaurant. When I asked what the dress code was for hostesses, they told me "Dress like a whore in church." Have fun imagining that.