Momentum

Alright. Today I am posting, even though I have not figured out how to upload photographs yet. pictures of the raw materials for my current project have been taken, just not included. However, blogging momentum must be maintained. Perhaps a description of the current big project which I am hoping to finish by February 8, to allow time for it to travel to Seattle. What is this mysterious project? A crocheted rug! Meant to live beside a bed, or somewhere else it will often encounter bare feet, because it is (or truly will be) a recycled cashmere rug. Hopefully an oval about six feet long and three feet wide, striped, in single crochet stitch for a thick and cushy feel. Here is how I was inspired to start out on this gift.
About a year ago I left both our bathmats at the laundromat. When I went back to fetch them next day they had callously gone home with someone else. I had a bag of T-shirts with me, and one look at all that soft jersey and I thought "rag mat". It seemed like the wave of the future (Working in the food service industry garauntees an endless supply of oil stained shirts). I love recycled things! Also, I love kniting and to a lesser extent crocheting, but am often too cheap to buy the yarns I love, and so do them less than I would like to.
I made a T-shirt bathmat for us and was mightily pleased by it. Then I made another as a hostess gift for my in-laws when we went to Alaska last summer. They loved it (or at least pretended to). On the way up, we spent one day in Seattle, where dear, incredibly thoughtful and generous friends hosted us for the night, fed us a great dinner and took us to the fourth of July fireworks, some of the best I have ever seen. Such remarkable hostessing deserves reward. Naturally, I thought of my newest trick, the crocheted rag mat. But for them it must be better! Such glamorous women deserve a glamorous rug! Enter the cashmere bedroom rug. Could any thing be more luxurious, yet cozy?
So, for the last 8 months or so I have been combing the Goodwill by-the-pound stores for cashmere sweaters. In the interests of finding enough garments I have had to broaden the rules of inclusion: Must contain cashmere, silk, angora or alpaca fiber. Must be fluffy and super-soft. Must be pink, brown, purple or some combination there of. At last I judge there are enough. In fact, there may be too many. But, I will use mostly pinks and purples and divert excess browns into a rug for myself, which I am collecting green and brown sweaters for even now.
The next step is cutting all the sweaters into strips. Since it is cold and cramped out here in the stairwell, I think I'll go to work on it.