Whipping Started

I started whipping my Grasshopper rug tonight. I cut off the extra linen, leaving an inch and a half to fold toward the top of the rug in a double fold, then I whip over that folded linen. I'm using a bulky wool yarn, so I'm whipping with only one strand. Usually I use black yarn, but this time I'm using a kind of fuzzy gray color that matches some of the "antique black" in the border. The whipping goes fairly fast with the bulky yarn, but I stopped after whipping one of the short ends - that took about an hour. Maybe I'll use the same kind of dark gray/antique black for the background on my double-cross rug.

I had a nice drive through some very rural countryside today, as part of a funeral procession (see my http://gibbydogblog.blogspot.com). We drove through country where I used to ride horses and used to travel around with my vet - it hasn't changed much at all in the last forty years. Nice old houses - houses that might be deserted like houses all over Michigan, but they don't look any more deserted than they've always looked. I may go back soon and take some photos for future rug plans. There's an especially nice Queen Anne style house with some unusual gingerbread that I'd like to put into a rug. I saw a nice little herd of Texas long-horn cattle, pretty unusual in Michigan, and heard about one of the calves being stolen and sold to someone right down the road. Long-horn cattle are unique enough around here that the whole community spotted the lost cow right away. Turns out the cattle rustler was the son and grandson of the owners. I guess a black sheep stole the cow.