Handmade Gift

On Saturday, Julie and I got together to do a little shopping, a little spinning, a little eating and a lot of talking. But the highlight for me was receiving a special gift from Julie for my birthday.

A Pin Cushion with Personality

As I had been pinning down my pieces of the Pearl Buck jacket, I had been thinking how much easier it would be if I had a big pin cushion and the pin heads were sticking straight up instead of being in the bowl container I keep them in. I often get poked reaching into that bowl or get a pin in the opposite orientation that I need it in. My problems are now solved by Julie's fabulous pin cushion, which is of impressive size -- probably 3 inches tall and at least 4 inches in diameter, there's room for a small army of pins. She's weighted the bottom so it won't roll over and it's stuffed with some leftover roving from a trip to the Fold. Of course, my favorite part is the hand-embroidered initial on the top of the cushion done in a Celtic font. And how could you not like the knitting themed button pins that she found to put on as an accent? It makes me happy just to have it on my desk!

The other highlight of the afternoon was digging into some wonderful washed fleece that Liz sent along for us to fondle and spin with. We started working with just a little bit of the CVM and our improvised "carders" (dog slickers) and got enough so that Julie could spin a little bit of it on her drop spindle. This stuff was so awesome! Not only was it soft and a treat to handle, but when spun, it had this incredible elasticity. And the color was an incredible semi-sweet chocolate brown. Really beautiful stuff. My next mission is to look and see if I can find a small fiber preparer that can take this lovely stuff and turn it into roving. One thing Julie and I discovered while working with it is that our carding skills aren't really up to the challenge at this point. So I'm going to see if I can find someone who can give us a little help getting us a long our way. If anyone has any suggestions for companies that will process small amounts of fiber and do a good job, I'd love to hear about it!

And to anyone interested, I have posted a short review of the Yarn Harlot's most recent book over on Two Friends Collect Books. I've been a little lax in my posting over there but I hope to get going again with my reviews -- which will also include some non-knitting books.