Tag: schacht matchless

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Finally: Rain!

Waking up to the excitement of rain this morning. It will do little to help the horrible drought we’re in, but it is a drop or two in the bucket, and California will take every drop it can get. It did not keep us from taking a two mile walk, but we ended up soaking wet and were glad to get into a warm house.

In my future today is spinning. I started last night and could not get to sleep because I did not get enough spinning in. At the Foothill Fibers Guild Meeting last night Lisa Souza gave a presentation and we all succumbed to the fiber fumes she brought along and I ended up with two 4 ounce bundles of fiber made of 50/50 bombyx silk/fine merino in the colors petroglyph and water gardens. And here I was going to show restraint until Stitches. Really?!

As promised I will show you the Steve West shawl, but, and this is a huge but, there is no way I can take an appropriate picture in this rain or the dark house, so you’ll have to settle for an awful blocking picture. But even with the colorful distraction of the mats you might get the idea.

I just found out the Tibetan monks are in town for their yearly visit. One of their projects is a sand mandala they then destroy to show the transitory nature of material life. The last part of this sentence is plagiarized. I’m always in awe that these folks take so much time to create these exquisite paintings knowing they will not last.

Yesterday when I was contemplating destroying/unraveling the shawl I saw a similarity. Except I did not know beforehand I might destroy the shawl, and it took me way more time to knit this shawl than it takes the monks to do the mandala. And there would have been a totally different message in my destruction. So perhaps I’ll quit the comparison.

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While I’m doing photos, let me show you a small shawl I made for my friend’s 96th birthday:

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I will only show half of what I bought last night because one of the colors did not photograph well at all. That’s a shame because it is most unusual and my favorite one.

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And that’s it for today. Some cooking and lots of spinning and Netflix waiting for me.

One more photo. Did I ever show you my Schacht Matchless? If I did, well, it’s well worth another look.

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There’s Something in the Air

While in southern parts of this Earth people are celebrating the warmth of summer, we’re heading into snow. It could not have been any more obvious today. Shopping for oil for my spinning wheel, my brand new Schacht Matchless spinning wheel, yes, you’ve read right, I took the plunge a few days ago, more on that later, back to the store: there was this special atmosphere, almost christmassy, holiday like. Every store was crowded and everyone was getting ready for the big one tonight. Everyone was acknowledging one another instead of the typical everyday stupor people are in, running around without noticing a thing. We’re all into this together today. The promise of snow, the usual electricity outage that accompanies the first snow, the magic. I like that, it gives me hope. As I’m typing tiny little snowflakes are falling. Mind you, not a lot, and no winter whiteness yet, but we’re promised to be enjoying it tomorrow.

I’ve been so neglectful of this blog. Yes, I did write a few entries, but only in my head. As it has been getting colder the room the computer lives in right now isn’t heated, so writing for an extended period of time becomes unpleasant.

And there have been some unpleasant experiences I had no idea how to share. Still not sure how to write about it. Best I’ll give a link to the news story at the end.

As many know, our son Toby was on the Tahoe Hotshots this year. The most amazing time in his life and though the work was excruciating hard and difficult, he was thriving. The party on the evening on the last day of work was accordingly full of fun and singing and playing and whatever young guys do after a hard season of work. As Toby was heading back home with his girlfriend driving, others were headed back to the barracks with their designated driver. But then the unthinkable, unimaginable happened. And here I’ll take you to one of the online stories: yubanet story.

There have been no follow up stories so far and I’m left with speculations and a million possible scenarios but nothing making sense.

My life besides obsessively checking for news every day of the accident consists of fiber. Recently I’ve started hosting an evening of knitting for members of our fiber guild. It’s been a blast. And lots of holiday knitting. Hanukkah having come so early this year has me relaxing now.

Our daughter Liana came for Thanksgiving with boyfriend and we had a wonderful time and she got reacquainted with knitting.

My wheel is calling loudly to spin some more. Gotta abide.

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