Can you guess what it is? Merino/Polwarth/Possum blend from New Zealand. It's very soft and nice to spin. The lady at the store said that possums in New Zealand are different from what we have here -- cuter, but abundant and they eat everything up. So, they round them up and make yarn... Just can't get enough of the sunset in Fort Bragg. I'd love to have stayed longer there, but had couldn't get the room more than one night. So we headed out to the next destination -- Vichy Springs in Ukiah.
Mitch: "Are we going back to number two and number one?" Me: "No, we are going somewhere else. We may get some different numbers this time." Mitch: "But I like number two and number one."
On the way out of Fort Bragg, we saw the railway for Skunk Train. I was hoping that we could get on it, but they don't run during the winter. We are going to have to come back when it's running.
Checked in at Vichy Springs Resort. We were all surprised to find out that the room number was twenty one again! It made Mitch happy.
The place is quiet (other than the annoying noises from the nearby shooting range), and serene. Trees, creek, hills and paths that are laid between the cabins. Outside baths. Most of the trees on the property are covered with lichens. Oh yeah.
No TVs. So, we spent a lot of time soaking in the carbonated baths, walking, knitting (for me) and playing Nintendo (boys).
It was unusually warm on the day we arrived, but the second day was quite windy. I picked up a lot of "found" lichens. Mostly beard lichens.
I didn't realize that beard lichens are actually like nets, like an intricate knitted lace. Intriguing. Most of the lichens I collected during the trip is this kind, but I am not sure what color beard lichens are supposed to produce. The jar I got going on fermenting beard lichen is not yet showing any strong color....
Seems that I hit the limit for the photos again. This is really annoying! I have resized and decreased the color depths of the photos to make them smaller in size. I've cleared the IE cache. Tried force loading the photos. Nothing works! If anyone knows how to fix this, please let me know!
I'm closing the Mystery Dye contest! Unfortunately, no one hit the answer I was hoping for, but Liz came the closest -- actually her answer "cranberry tea" is what I used to dye this wool. What actually dyed the wool is hibiscus (actually the main ingredient of Bigelow cranberry tea). So, "hibiscus tea" would have been the bull's eye. Since Liz did get the product name, she wins the contest!
I have a new contest. When do we get our 1,000th visitor to our blog? As of today at 23:20 PST, we have 894 visitors. We've been getting average of 12 visitors a day this week. Name the date and time (PST) we hit 1,000, and whoever came closest wins. The prize will be a knitting magazine -- what kind (or which issue) is undecided -- could well be one in foreign language!
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