Category: Life Page 25 of 30

Martin and I were lucky to spend an hour or so in the company of Jimmy Carter this afternoon. The former president came by our office to talk to us about The Carter Center and just plain chat. What an amazing person. And he shared a bit of his humor, his take on the current election, and a little bit about this letter that he wrote to Zell Miller, and how we as individuals can make a difference. I repeat, what an amazing person!

Oh yes, you came here to read about fibers. The new batch of cutch dyed lincoln-corriedale is darker than the first batch. But stupid me changed two variables instead of just one at a time, so I don’t know which had the most impact. First, I re-scoured the wool in one hot soapy bath, followed by one hot rinse. Second, I premordanted the wool for about 36 hours in alum. So, I don’t know if it was the residual grease on the wool that was prohibiting the dye from taking, or whether premordant made the difference. But I will say that there’s still some grease in the wool, and a LOT of dye came out in the first rinse.

Warning: Absolutely no knitting content ahead.

Middle of last week, I moved from one building in my office complex to the other, while my business customers moved down the street. It’s inconvenient as heck. But now, I have a good excuse to take a 10 minute walk each way in this beautiful weather. California is much more conducive to this than when I was working in downtown Seattle. Besides, the streets are flat around here, whereas I had to go up and down the steep hills of downtown Seattle between the buildings — not to mention the rain.

It’s also amazing how attached one can get to those Toto Washlets and a warm toilet seat. The new building has just the plain old toilets. And what a shock it is when you sit down on an ice cold toilet seat! And the nice, soft, warm cleansing with the fluff cycle afterwards. I know, TMI. But I have to tell you, there is absolutely nothing like it when you are feeling yucky during your monthly cycle.

Oh well, I can always hold it and run back to the other building if I have the need. Besides, I have to go back to the other building to get my tea. Just drink and pee, pee and drink.

Okay, I’m exhausted and feeling punchy.

There’s been no knitting content. I’ve come to the sad conclusion that 2 of the sweaters I’m working on just isn’t doing it. I just don’t like how the sweater is working out with the handspun silk/merino. The more I think about it, the less I like it. The best thing for it is to rip it out, re-skein, and wash. The second sweater is with the pink/green singles. I blindly followed a vest recipe pattern. I should have gone with my gut when I thought that the underarm decreases wouldn’t work. The shoulder doesn’t have enough stitches for my taste.

So, both require frogging. I just don’t have it in me to do it right now.

May you all have nice warm toidy seats.

No knitting content. We had to make that difficult call yesterday to put our oldest cat to sleep today.

Read More