Monday, April 17, 2006

Three Hs

H is for Holiday Sox.H is for Holiday Sox and Yarn Harlot On the one hand, they were very very very late; on the other hand, they got to meet the Yarn Harlot at the Rutherford Public Library (Exit 153). It was quite a wonderful evening and incontrovertible proof public libraries and librarians rock; I can't ordinarily show socks quite such a good time. Kindly see here for more of the story.

H is for Hadrosaurus foulkii, the New Jersey State Dinosaur. It's a kind of duckbill dinosaur. The first specimen was unearthed in 1858 – before the U.S. Civil War – in Haddonfield, NJ (NJT Exit 4), which has various monuments downtown and at the historic site, an old marl pit. It was the first nearly complete dinosaur skeleton ever discovered and is still on display at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. A peaceable old plant-eater, it sparked the "Bone Wars" among rival museums and fossil collectors. I once got to hold a fossilized partial lower jaw, which was beautifully detailed (the skin and dental batteries were perfect) and very heavy.

And H is for hemp. An excellent rope fiber, but those who pretend it rivals flax linen for garments probably have been smoking rather than knitting it.

See the rest of my ABCs.

4 comments:

dragon knitter said...

ok, what brought on the hemp crack, lol? it's amazingly hard to find hemp yarn round here. i think it ahs something to do with that smoking crack you made, lol. i've been told, though, that the plant used to produce hemp has so little thc in it that you'd get a bigger buzz off of cooking spray, lol.

dragon knitter said...

oh, and the colorway is named majestic, from my sock pal socks. i think it's 100% merino, but i could be wrong, check the link on my blog, and ask her for sure.

Ina said...

Thanks for the colorway - such a nice yarn!

Sorry you have trouble finding hemp yarn, the prejudice is considerable, isn't it. Industrial hemp and medicinal marijuana are derived from different parts of same plant, Cannabis sativa, and that makes some folk all skeery. Yet no one seems to worry that the same garden poppy plant, Papaver somniferum, yields edible seeds and also produces raw opium.

What do you use hemp yarn for? I find the fiber a bit tough for garments.

--Deb said...

We HAVE a state dinosaur??