I stayed in Lansing Sunday and met my friend Deb/Scarlet Zebra at Threadbear. We went to lunch at New Aladdin’s at Frandor, and then we went to my house briefly.

Deb and I first met online several years ago. Some folks you meet online, then you meet them for coffee and enjoy it, but don’t meet again. Deb is different, we really clicked from day one and we can talk just about forever, mostly about wool- and color-related subjects. (My friend Elizabeth, in Vermont, I also first met online.)

Deb and I have met so many times now that I can’t remember how many. We’ve met in Flint, Imlay City (her town), Davison, Lake Orionm and Ann Arbor. Some of these require up to 2 hours of driving time.

However, somehowe we’ve never met in Lansing. It was fun to show her my purple-painted porch. I spent a little time showing her my knitting machine. She’d never seen one in operation before. Since I’m never happier than when I’m teaching, I enjoyed doing a demo.

Brian went to the music festival in Kalamazoo and enjoyed that very much. I’m sure I would have liked it, too, but I had to make choices and I had not seen Deb except very briefly once since I got back from Africa this January. That had just plain been too long! I really need my self-employed friends, especially those in the fiberarts. I’m glad I made the choice to be with Deb.

Exciting news: I’m in the process of making some large polymer clay buttons for sale (the plan is that they will work great on felted bags and perhaps capes). The ones I have so far measure between 1.25″ and 1.75″ (appx 3.5 to 4.5cm), most on the larger side.

Give me a while to get it all sorted out, but I should have some available in perhaps a few weeks. I don’t know if I will do just one batch and decide that’s enough, or whether I’ll keep making them. Whatever the future, it’s my current project.

And big thanks to Mare Smith who sent two really generous boxes, just full of lopi for my CityKidz Knit! program which starts up again in a few weeks. The older kids love making backpacks and we almost never have appropriate yarns for it. This is a huge and generous supply of just exactly what we need. Thanks a million, Mare!

Pictures: 1) The first of the one-of-a-kind polymer clay buttons I’ve made in this batch. It’s the largest of the bunch, at 1.75″. I expect I’ll keep this one for me. 2) Boxes full of feltable fat yarn for the CityKidz, thanks to Mare.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 29th, 2005 at 1:00 amand is filed under Knitting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.