Mossy Cottage Knits

TMK Visits the Mole People

Despite her obsession with all things sunny and outdoorsy, TMK has been getting a surprising amount of spinning done when she spends time in the dreary, dark and moist underground world of us Mole People. Here, her Blue Moon "Rooster Rock," a goodly portion of which she spun this past weekend at Nearby Neighbor Naomi’s:

The roving for this yarn has, bar none, the most unique color combination imaginable: burnt sienna, scarlet, sand, eggplant, gray—colors that, in my opinion, you would only put together if someone were dangling your first-born over a cliff, but they work beyond all conceivable workiness. I find both the roving and the singles completely mesmerizing.

(Okay, now this is weird. Since the Rooster Rock colors make me think of a painted desert at sunset (I'm not known for my originality), I went to find a picture to link to for illustrative purposes, because that’s what we bloggers do, don’t y’know, and the first link I clicked on was for a photo taken by Dave Edwards—the photographer who founded F.I.R.E. Spookay! Anyhoo, here it is.)

Speaking of F.I.R.E., no Dulaan goal-number update today but I’m about 95% done gleaning from emails and comments the names of people who Finished Their Dulaan Five (Or More). As of today, I’ve added the following 37 people. As always, the list is sorted alphabetically by first name and, if you indicated you wanted to be referred to by nickname, that’s the name I used:

Abby d'Ambruoso
Ann Andersen
Annette
Ashley Clayton
Bullwinkle
Caroline Foty
Catherine Ngo
Curran Mulholland
Deb Bouchard
Diane Turk
Diann Lippman
Drea
Elaine Haig-Widner
Gail
Jeanne Dowling
Jen Umlas
Jessica Kilgore
Josette
Joy Bury
Judith Scott-Hammerquist
Julia Collins
Kimberly Hutchens
Laura Walters
Linda Harris
Lisa Isgitt
Lynda D.
Marcia
Marianne Robinson
MaryB
Melanie Clark
omly
Sarah Schira
Susan Jones
Susan Molen
Susanna Eve
Wendy Colbert
Zonda Belmont

If your name doesn’t appear, fret not, comment not, email not; I’m still working on this and have about 20 more names to pull out.

(This would all be a lot easier if, a couple of months ago, my Excel spreadsheet hadn’t gone all postal on me. Now, I’m an experienced Excel user, especially in the area of sorting because I love me some data manipulation, but something went gruesomely wrong one day and, by the time the dust settled, not a single email address was next to the name it belonged to, and the names of people who had finished their five were back to being interspersed with the names of people who hadn’t. And the ca-ca version of the file had been saved over the not ca-ca version. Four hundred and something names—all kaplooie.)

Now, please, a moment of hushed reverence for the Grand Master of All Dulaan Grand Masters, our Nancy O., who knit and mailed 157 items for the project. Can I hear a "HOO-AH?" This is the kind of number usually reserved for participants who get their entire women’s church group, or an entire school—students, teachers, parents—to knit for an entire year, then gather up all their items and ship them off, but, no; Nancy did this by her lonesome. Perhaps I need to set up a little shrine to her in my stash room.

I also learned recently from Kimberly Turnbow of Warm Woolies that, as of June 4, the Warm Woolies knitters had donated 2,449 items with another 200-300 in the hopper. I’ve seen a lot of Warm Woolies items in the pictures, and I knew that knitters were availing themselves of the Warm Woolies vest pattern on our pattern page; I just had no idea the Warm Woolies knitters themselves were churning out so many items specifically for Dulaan. Thank you, Kimberly, and all your fabulous Woolie-ites!

Another big producer has been Magic Mongolian Mittens, a grassroots group in Oregon similar to Dulaan. Last year, however, MMM lost their NGO liaison in Mongolia, certainly frustratingly bad news for them but fantastic news for us since they are now sending their items to Dulaan. This year they have sent 477 items.

On the BSJ front, success!!! Unless, that is, the same thing that happened to my Excel file happens to the BSJ in the next four rows. One of the rows does involve buttonholes so a small mushroom cloud could certainly appear between my needle tips at any time. Don’t forget, I’m the person who almost ripped out an entire sweater because she forgot that the buttonholes were holes she had put there on purpose.

Posted by Ryan at June 27, 2007 12:18 PM