Recycling

Tah-dah. The pullover is now a cardigan. I cannot begin to tell you the anguish I exper-
ienced when I cut up the center of my work. Even though I had machine stitched up both sides of the center stitch to secure the yarn, it was torture. It didn't help that the yarn is so dark. Allison's downstairs studio has a huge picture window and I sat right in front of it for the natural light and snipped just a couple of stitches at a time. One of the plies of this yarn was a llama blend and the sweater is hot. I know I'll wear it as a cardigan now, but I wouldn't want to do this again any time soon.

Here's a close-up of the buttons. I got to Jimmy Beans yesterday morning early enough that I was the only customer, so Jeanie was able to spend quite a bit of time helping me select buttons. It was hard because their buttons rock. I feel so lucky to finally have such an awesome LYS. We went through years of LYS drought. After all the work I have invested in this sweater, I didn't want fabric store buttons. You can also see my gorgeous heathered yarn. It's brown Targhee and grey llama. If I knew then what I know now, I would have omited the llama, but you have to admit that the colors, overdyed with hibiscus Gaywool Dye are pretty nice.

And another recycled item. Ian took the dogs for a ride out in nowheres-
ville, looking for deer and antelope. He said he saw the legs of this sticking out of the brush, so stopped the truck just out of curiosity. It had a pad that snaps onto the chair but it was disgusting. Don't you wonder how it came to be parked in the high desert sagebrush? It's a glider and works great. In fact, I sat in it to knit up the button banks and finish off my sweater - temps were in the 60s today. The wood is completely bleached from exposure.

I had to make yet another batch of soap today. I really wanted to read, but soap has to age four weeks so I really had no alternative. I bought a huge bag of sodium hydroxide from Sierra Chemicals when I first started making soap. I figured it would be cheaper then Red Devil, even if I never used it all. We I have just about used it all and was trying to determine how many more batches I can make before buying more. I was stunned to realize that it's a product of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. When have I ever bought anything from them??

That explains all the languages the warnings are printed in on the back side of the bag. In any language, don't mess with sodium hydroxide.