Yarn I couldn't resist

Last month I went to The Clearing, a folk school in Ellison Bay at the tip of Door Co., WI to work on a novel manuscript. I took my washcloth crocheting for those times when I wanted to smoke and think. After a day and a half I realized that my desire to smoke was greater than the amount of yarn I had packed, so I consulted a friend and set out for the local yarn shop. They had skeins of cotton yarn in colors I hadn't seen so I picked up a few since everything in the store was 20% off. Killing time I roamed around looking at all the projects on display and all the yarn and books. The sight of a pile of yarn in a corner stopped me dead. I picked up a skein and fondled it. It was stiff silk yarn, a fair trade product, made from the sweepings of Indian sari mills sent to Nepal to be spun then sold by Frabjous Fibers. Remember I was in a tourist area so the price was high, but it was too beautiful to leave there, besides I had some mad money tucked in my wallet. Too enamored of it to wait to work it until I got home, I bought a hook and consulted with Hermi, another crocheter at The Clearing who crochets purses to felt, and got to work. Hermi showed me how to make a flat bottom on a seamless purse and led me through the steps. I worked on it alternately with my washcloth (the silk yarn was rough enough to make marks on my fingers) and finished it the next week after I got home from writing camp. I found some perfect black plastic handles at a yarn shop in Green Bay and lined it with black dupioni silk. Not an everyday purse, but it just glows. I love the idea that women in Nepal have their own money and can support themselves through something that would have been thrown away.

And I'm on day 15 with only a couple of slips. Crocheting has helped keep my fingers busy when the desire to light up gets too strong.