Check this out!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1205007/Shepherdess-bride-marries-stunning-dress-wool-flock.html

Sorry I don't know how to put in links correctly. But all fiberistas will enjoy this article. It's worth a cut and paste to get there.

I was going to put in an illustration of the nifty way of joining and binding off simultaneously that I unvented, but Saturday got busy! DH decided we would go to the local parades of homes. The four monster mansions in Washington, each on no less than an acre of ground, got us lots and lots of walking in the fresh air, and all sorts of ideas for what we want to do with the money if we ever win the powerball mega lottery. One house has a secret room behind the rec room. You push a stone on the fireplace, and the wall folds out and behind the fireplace is a home theatre! The home also has a room dedicated to storage. How brilliant is that? The color scheme on this one was particularly pleasant, featuring beachy white and blue with touches of yellow and accents of black. Very fresh, light and open. We tend to go for warm, intimate earth tones up here in the gray and rainy northwest, and this Cape Cod colorway was just a delightful change.

There was one that was decorated in heavy, dark Spanish Mediterranean. Anyone else remember that? O-Pressive! Dark and claustrophobic. Lots of black iroon grillwork dust catchers. And the heavily textured plaster walls - does anyone else think those will be a royal pain to keep clean? This place also had itsy bitsy tilework behind the stove where the grout could soak up every cooking splatter and drop of grease and need to be cleaned twice a year with a toothbrush by someone who will need to sit ON the stove to reach every crevice and corner. Does no one think of these things?

Then we went on to the "Street of Dreams" which is all condos in the trendy new downtown district. The first building we visited featured floor to cieling windows all the way around, bare white walls, bare cherry floors and sparse furnishings, with huge, expensive modern objects-d'arte all around. A comfy afghan and some knitting would have looked like a rag doll at a Barbie convention. I can't envision anyone actually living in those spaces. Too cold, formal and stark. Stunning views, but no comfort. And by two pm on a cloudy afternoon, the AC was already struggling against those heat-sink windows.

The next building had much less expensive. About a million dollars less. Those cold,sterile penthouses ran around 3 millin dollars each, and then you had the monthly maintainence fee, and you still don't own the DIRT! As far as I'm concerned, condos are only slightly better than apartments.

But back to the second building: Rooms on a human scale, with color and textiles and dog-beds and fluffy throws on the sofas. Rooms I could see myself living in. Bedrooms with walls, instead of floor to ceiling windows. A TV in the living room (Though discreetly hidden behind armoire doors.) A kitchen where you can envision mis-matched Tupperware falling out of a cupboard, and sippy cups on the drainboard. A bathroom where a toothbrush and a bar of soap will not be an offensive and jarring intrusion. If I HAD to live downtown, and had more money than sense, I could consider living in those less extravagant spaces. Still, A patio on the north side of the building is not gonna be all that useful around here. It rains nine months of the year. The folks with those north side patios are going to have to have to deal with slimey green and black mold, moss and algae as long as they live in the place. Those big patios are staged with a roomful of furniture. Where are you going to store it in the winter?

I was, by then, starving, so we stopped at a boutique yogurt store for a restorative treat. DH had a bottle of water. I had a delicious soft frozen mango yogurt with strawberries. But I don't know if it was $7 worth of delicious for a cup of yogurt and three chopped half-ripe berries. I can get twice as much cold deliciousness at Costco for $2. It's vanilla instead of boutique mango, and there are no fresh berries. I dunno . . .

Anyhow, it did not sufficiently restore me, and my feet were starting to hurt because the shoes I had chosen had, after years of service, given up their support and sproing. So we walked back to the car and drove on home where I flopped in the recliner and promptly fell asleep. I am SUCH a wimp! It was only six or seven miles of walking,stair climbing, and traffic dodging. Only four hours of intense sensory input. I just don't have the resilience I used to.

When we got home, there was a package on the front porch. Heide (http://heideho.wordpress.com/) had dyed some laceweight yarn and, after it dried, she had found too many breaks in it. "I don't know what I'll do with it," she said. Half joking, I said, "Send it to me." The amazing, generous, talented woman DID. AND, she stuck in a jar of her homemade blackberry jam for which she shed blod, sweat and swears. Heide, you totally rock!