Rescue Grand Slam

The Potting Shed (aka where George Bush voters have to sleep when visiting.)

I made it to my Virginia destination in quite good time yesterday. A record 10 hour drive with no glitches and only one or two state troopers eyeballed in the entire 600 mile drive. Also, I only made quick stops because rest areas creep me out. Every 150 miles, I got out to stretch and fill up on coffee. My gas tank only required one refill. After a year, my Accord still delivers 31 miles to the gallon (more than half of which was mountainous and all of which required air conditioning.) I love this car.

The Pond (if you click on photo, you can see the fish. Fish like cheerios, who knew?)

When I got to my sister's house, no one was home but I heard voices. Following the voices (I never claimed I was a member of Mensa), I found Cayda who was crated and watching Animal Planet. I opened the crate and she greeted me like she would anyone, with lots of slobber and butt wagging. I could have been the burglar, she didn't care; I was the person offering freedom. We got along quite well until she investigated the bags of yarn. Then we had a stern discussion and I put the yarn up. Very high up. In this particular photo, she looks to be paying strict attention to the fact that I told her she'd be sleeping in the woods if she ate that yarn.

The cousin of Jezebel. Very sassy and incredibly spoiled. I pulled her out of the pond twice today. She had jumped in to cool off.

After breakfast today, my niece and I hit the farmer's market in town. We both bought quite a few things we didn't need and went downtown to the vintage clothing store. This is where I rescued two beautiful hand knit items from where they were hiding in obscurity.


One is a beautiful fair isle sweater in black, aqua, pink, purple and turquoise. The inside stranding (above) is as beautiful as the outside. There is no pilling on this sweater at all and I wonder if it was ever worn. Color work doesn't really suit me. It's way more complicated than what I'd ever choose to do and therein lies it's charm for me. There it was, this thing of beauty, hanging on the clearance rack for $10.00. I would never in a million years wear this, but my Rachel will. She'll love the warmth and the duckies.


The other item I found there was a shawl in the palest blush. This item took my breath away. Lace work is difficult. It was knit in a superfine, possibly alpaca, yarn. It's incredibly soft. If there are any flaws in this shawl, I can't find them.

I even know who knit this piece as it had a label (proof this was a labor of love) stitched into it with the knitter's name. Pride of workmanship. It was found in the bottom of a heap of sweaters that were not hand made and possibly constructed (by machine) of acrylic. I felt so sad for the knitter, though I'm sure she isn't aware it was in a resale shop. I won't say how much it cost because, like the sweater above, I think it was sold for a song. That would hurt me to know if it were my name on this beautiful shawl, I'm sure she'd be offended too. I wondered about this piece and I googled her name to not much avail. I'll check Ravelry, but I'm not so sure I'd find her there. Although the fiber arts world is large, it's also tightly knit so to speak. If anybody out there knows Niki Gliptis, send her my way. I have her masterpiece.

In the mean time, I'll give this piece a soak and block it. I already checked, it looks great with my shawl pin.