Wednesday, April 25, 2007

travel, souvenirs and a spindle

This is where I spent last weekend...

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and here's who I spent it with...


my best friends

left to right:
Susan, Lynn, Leslie (what the hell is she doing?),

Sam (peeking over the railing), Nicole and Shannon

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The view from the deck of our chalet...
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where SE Shannon caught me spinning
(before the alcohol flowed--damn, were we really up 'til 4AM?)...
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Other than this

(hopefully too small to make out details

such as Sam's googly eyes--yes, we really were up 'til 4AM!)...

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all my souvenirs came from Smoky Mountain Spinnery
(sorry, they don't have a website to link to)...

creamy bamboo

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merino/tussah silk

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brown cashmere/tussah silk
*drool*

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I also picked up 4 oz of baby camel down/tussah silk for Em but I think she took it to school so will have to get a pic later.

I was encouraged to fondle some cloud soft, cinnamon-colored vicuna down (I had to search it out when I got home because I'd never heard of vicuna) in a small zippered bag held out by the shop owner. I wish I'd had my camera with me. I wish Les had snapped a pic of my face when she told me that small bit (1 oz) of fluff sells for THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS.

I imagined the phone conversation with Peter...

"Honey, I spent three hundred dollars on something in a Ziploc bag"

. . .

*silence*

. . .

*more silence*

. . .

*still more silence*

. . .

"Is this 'something' an illegal substance?"

While I was away, some spindles I ordered from an eBay store arrived. They are all a lot heavier than they were supposed to be. Two smaller ones were just over one ounce, rather than .7 ounce. Two larger ones were nearly 3 ounces each, rather than 1.9 and 2.1 ounces. I was pissed not pleased.

But the design gave me an idea. I went to Michael's and purchased some wooden toy car wheels, a 5/8" dowel and assorted other things. After some work on the wheel with my new multi-tool, a bit of glue, stain and a coat of satin polyurethane, this is what I came up with this morning...

approximately .7 ounce

(I really need a digital scale)

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Pretty cool!

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