Sarak, for people who don't listen to The Knit Wits Podcast (http://knitwitspodcast.blogspot.com/), is an aborted attempt by Carin (the Knit) to make a Christmas stocking for an acquaintance. Carin eventually made the stocking using other yarn, but this little piece of knitting history is now on tour, and currently with me in Park City, UT. The name was supposed to be "Sarah," but looked like "Sarak," so the name stuck. No Vulcans involved!
Sarak went with us when we took the pups for a snowshoe outing.
On Saturday, Sarak went with Joanie and me to the Acorn Antique Fair in Ogden, UT.
We stopped in at The Needlepoint Joint in Ogden. I had a credit there I wanted to use. It was enough for two skeins of Regia sport weight self-striping sock yarn and a little more towards a third skein. I bought four, enough for two pairs of fingerless mitts for dialysis patients.
Joanie bought some organic wool from Picabo Lean Inc. in Idaho. It's $4 for 2 oz. 2-ply sport weight and is natural white (suitable for dyeing). They also have it on cones. The Needlepoint Joint is the only place this yarn can be purchased. Here's what it says on the label:
"This wool is the product of sheep descended from the original ewe bands on the historic Busterback Ranch founded in 1918. The ranch, named for the men and women who almost broke their backs in labor, is located in the scenic Sawtooth Valley of central Idaho. In summer, the sheep providing this wool graze on lush organic pastures at the BBarB Ranch in Picabo, Idaho. In winter, they eat hay from these same pastures. The wool was processed at Green Mountain Spinnery using vegetable oil based soap, yielding a high quality organic product that you will enjoy working with and using for years and years!"
We found it very clean (devoid of vegetable matter) and sweet-smelling. Sarak does not knit and has no bank account, so she didn't buy anything.
It was good we went on Saturday, because we had a blizzard on Sunday. Here's what the snow looked like coming off the roof:
I'm coming down the home stretch on the second Daisy Chain quilt. Here's what it looks like with more than half of the blocks pinned to my design wall:
I used the Elna I inherited from my DSIL to piece the strips, because it goes very fast, but switched back to my little Featherweight to put the pieced strips together into blocks. It's slower, but I can get the seams to come together more accurately. I'm going to add a white border, as with the first one, but then plan on a 1" border and more white outside of that.
I've been posting little tips and ideas for quilting on Connecting Threads Quilt With Us here. Check it out.
I have been listening to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice from Librivox. I downloaded Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett from Audible.com, so I will be starting that next.
On another note, my friend Buffy Joseph has joined Team in Training to prepare for bike riding a century (100 miles!)
in June around Lake Tahoe. The Team in Training program raises money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, which works to cure blood cancers and to support patients and their families.
Check out Buffy's website here.
Note: This blog post was produced entirely on the iPad. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for or cleaned.
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