Yarn Harbor

I am the luckiest girl EVER because I have a fella who is so tolerant of my yarn habit! Before we left town, Dave drove me to The Yarn Harbor located at 103 Mount Royal Shopping Circle. It is kind of a funny location in the middle of a small strip mall. There was a section on the large sign outside the mall and you drive around the building and park and walk into the mall and this is the door that greets you. It was WELL worth the trip though as you will see!
This is the wall of Cascade! :) This will make any knitter smile! Look at that palette of worsted weight yarn! Just to the left of this section was a nook full of locally produced and spun alpaca and wool yarn and I came away with 2 skeins of sport weight that will either be socks or baby/baptismal items.
They had a very good selection of Kauni yarn pictured here on the left and on the right is Noro. Noro makes me happy but I was SO PLEASED to see Kauni! The knitting world is waking up to this wonderful brand!
Along the far wall in this pictures is Lopi and the stacks in the foreground are all baby weight yarns. Just to the left and out of frame is the very large knitting group that had gathered at the store on this fine Saturday morning.
THIS is the section of the store devoted to several weights of Jamieson and Smith yarn! Take note in these pictures of all the individual patterns in plastic sleeves hanging off the shelves and the coordinating pattern books on display. This was an AWESOME yarn shop and their selection of patterns/books/booklets was top notch.
This center stack was full of Brown Sheep's Lamb's Pride in both worsted and bulky. Patterns everywhere!
Here we have all the Dale of Norway lines and weights. The gal working was very friendly and helpful and gave me a lay of the land when I first came in and made more recommendations of shops in the Twin Cities area. She had asked where I was from and what were my local yarn shops and I told her we really didn't have any decent shops in my area. I complimented her on her shop and selection and especially on the selection of Kauni and Jamieson and Smith and told her that it had been easier to TRAVEL to Estonia and Shetland to get those brands of yarn! She said they will happily fill and ship phone orders and encouraged me to check in regularly on their website which includes a blog.

I give Dave all kinds of credit for taxiing me to my yarn dealers but he did sit this one out and read the paper out on a bench in the hallway. He asked me if I liked this shop better than The Yarnery in St. Paul and I told him I loved it but asking me that is similar to asking me which of my children I love the best. ;) He understood the analogy! I promptly called my mother and told her that she and dad need to make plans to come to Duluth for a weekend in such a locale and more importantly...for the YARN! :)

Duluth

Dave and I traveled to Duluth this weekend for his bowling tournament. I was born in northern Minnesota but I've been an Iowan since I was 2 years old and was last in Duluth as an infant. One of my dear friends from 6W would go to Duluth with her family quite a lot for weekend getaways and now I know why! Duluth was absolutely delightful and we really didn't get to see that much due to weather and tournament obligations! It was windy and beginning to snow when we arrived on Friday afternoon and THIS is what greeted us at Canal Park! There were 2 ships anchored out on the water because they couldn't come in since the water was too rough.
We stood out and looked and tried to stay upright for about ten minutes before retreating into the free and awesome welcome center there. The wind would blow you right over and Dave stood too close to the shore and got hit by a wave and was DRENCHED. We were actually getting frostbite out in the wind! We stepped outside again at 1800 when the visitors' center closed and by that time, it had gotten even colder and the spray was actually freezing in the air and stung when it hit you in the face. Thank goodness we packed winter coats and clothes!

We went back the next day and got to actually walk on the shore, do some beach combing and take some decent pictures. I just love piles of stones!
Here is a more decent picture of the lighthouse when the water was less angry. We walked up on the slip where the ships come in and estimated that the waves had to be at least 15 feet the day before.I loved the lake and the bridges! It was hard to believe we were on the shore of lake and not the ocean!

My Garmin needed a sleeping bag...

I am now the proud owner of a Garmin GPS! Shopko had an awesome sale and I got mine for $89! I didn't shell out for the carrying case so instead I made one. Dave and I are going to Duluth this coming weekend and I wanted to get it done before then and not just let it bump around in my purse.
Mom and Ava and I will no doubt use it in London next summer so what better fabric to use than my London Map and Subway Guide fabric?!? I think I got this at Supperbuzzy.com. It is a fabulous and durable canvas fabric and was 60" wide so a yard goes a long way. I bought a cut for my mother and gave it to her for her birthday a few years ago. To pad this, I sandwiched white fleece interfacing between the canvas and some muslin lining and finished it off with a powder blue 7 inch zipper from my sewing stash. There is enough room to keep the Garmin literature/reference booklets inside as well.

I decided I didn't want the cords and windshield mount scraping around inside the same bag so I will use this rather appropriate fabric drawstring bag for those. I made this a few years ago before another trip to London to contain my sock knitting. I just loved these little "tin soldiers" in the design. I know I got this fabric at Mill End Textiles in Rochester. The little red soldiers are particularly appropriate considering...

...the reverse of the bag shows the location of Buckingham Palace! :)

...I could eat the back end of a lion!

I am so mad! I bought this lovely skein of Unisono which is a German brand of soft machine washable merino wool sock yarn. I paid almost $24 for it at Quality Sewing Center in Rochester and I snapped it up because it was such a pretty "autumn mix" colorway...in the skein.

I started knitting them and just HATED how they knit up and how the colors changed! This skein had 300 meters and I thought I would be A-OK but I ended up running out of yarn when it came time to finish the toe on the second sock. Can you tell where I substituted replacement yarn? That LEMON YELLOW toe is washable sock yarn left over from Lisa's Lello birthday socks this year. I have to blame myself though because I knit 7 inch cuffs on both of these socks because I like a longer sock but if I'd stuck to the standard 6 inch cuff, I would have had enough yarn to finish them properly. That still wouldn't change the fact that I hated the way this yarn knit up. I am going to start doing that with variegated yarns: take a picture of it when it is still in the skein and then take a picture of the finished item.

Calzones!

I am going through a MAJOR calzone phase ever since I saw this episode on PBS' Ciao Italiano! It was one of those recipes that looked SO GOOD that I just HAD to make it! I used the mushroom filling and made the bread according to the recipe on the site. They were incredibly simple to make and more delicious than I can tell you! Deedee and Melissa and I are getting together for Girl Talk Night and I made 3 different fillings for the dough! One is the mushroom filling featured in this recipe, one is a ricotta/spinach filling I found in a Moosewood Cafe cookbook I found when I worked at Norwegian Camp, and a pork filling from a recipe I saw on the Cia Italia site.

I am still raving about the mushroom filling and it called for Boursin (say boor-san) garlic herb cheese. I was amazed that Wal-Mart carried it! It is almost $4 for a 5.2 oz. piece.

I don't quite know how to describe this cheese. It is grainy and soft and spreadable like chevre but nowhere on the label does it say that it is a goat cheese. It comes packaged in a lovely crimped foil wrapper and is just heavenly with the mushrooms.

This is the final product and I took 2 of them to work last night for lunch. We will assemble several with different fillings tonight while we yik yak about important things!

Violently Happy

I drove MYSELF up to North St. Paul this last weekend to meet Dave's parents and I didn't kill anyone or hurt my car or even panic or CRY! Granted I drove early in the morning and borrowed Deedee's Garmin GPS. I have to say, that GPS made all the difference in the world and I will be getting one with my next paycheck! Everything went so well and I met and enjoyed myself with his parents, one of his older brothers, and his younger sister and her family. Dave said I "passed the family test." I was SO nervous but it went very well and I'm so glad I made the trip!

We went to go see the King Tut exhibition at the Minnesota Science Museum in St. Paul. It was a fascinating exhibit and something I've always wanted to see! Of course pictures and cell phones were not allowed in the exhibit (they even made me spit out my gum!) but it was well worth the price of admission. One of the most interesting things we learned was that King Tut is the ONLY Egyptian Pharaoh who still rests in his original tomb in the Valley Of The Kings. He now has a fancy nitrogen filled chamber for preservation purposes. The mummy they had on display was his replica mummy because his actual mummy has never traveled outside of Egypt. I did not know that! We were talking about that because I know the original statue of Nefertiti is in a museum in Berlin (because all the museums in the world with priceless Egyptian artifacts basically STOLE them--let's face it) and my parents and sister and brother in law saw it 2 years ago. They'd learned at that time that Egypt was opening a new museum and had requested borrowing Nefertiti for the grand opening and Berlin wouldn't send it citing, "She is too fragile to survive the trip." I think Berlin is just afraid they'll never get her back which is I'm sure why Egypt won't lend out King Tut's actual mummy. Dave and I were joking to each other the entire time about Steve Martin's version of King Tut. We kept telling each other that "he's my favorite honky." And the funniest thing he said to me all day was when we were going through the gift shop portion and he blandly said to me, "You know he was buried with a donkey. They didn't mention that in the exhibit." He's a keeper! "He gave his life for tourism." ;) My favorite part of the museum was this exhibit about natural dyes and different types of mordants! I love yarn!

We roamed through the rest of the museum which was very kid-friendly. I loved the view of the Mississippi from the top deck. We enjoyed typical February weather and it was just so picturesque! Dave kept referring to the river as "The Old Man."

We ate lunch at Cossetta's in St. Paul which was a field trip in and of itself! It reminded me of Victoria's in Rochester but it was set up more like a lunch counter because you went through the line with a tray and it was all disposable dishes and cans of pop. The prices were awesome because you weren't paying for wait staff or dish washing and everything was DELICIOUS! I had the chicken marsala and I didn't want my meal to end! Num Num!!!

My FAVORITE part had to be the market that was attached to the restaurant! Look at all those beautiful artisan breads! I just wanted to get to some yeast and BAKE when I saw this!!! They also sold a large selection of bee-YEW-tiful Maiolica pottery! I remember seeing and coveting it when I was in Italy but I never bought any because I knew I'd never get it home intact.

They had a lovely and VERY WELL STOCKED deli in the market portion of the restaurant! Look at all the hams and sausages and cheeses!

They had items that were cut off and sold by weight and individual units of things. I could have died and gone to heaven in there!
They also had the largest selection of olive oils I'd ever seen together in one place! I apologize that my pictures are so blurry but I took these photos without a flash. Normally when I try to take pictures in places like this, I get yelled at! These are my surreptitious SPY photos!
The same thing goes for this blurry photo of canned crushed tomatoes! I'd never SEEN so many varieties before! I bought 2 cans with pretty labels and they were $2ish each which is not bad considering I can get Wal-Mart cans at 97c each. I'm ashamed to say that I wanted them for the labels! Martha had a feature where she re-used the cans for pencil holders or flower vases. I'm shameless.
Dave then drove me to Sandeen's which is a Scandinavian gift shop on White Bear Avenue. I have been to Ingebretson's but this was a new shop to me. My mom was familiar with this shop because she'd ordered Hardanger fabric from them but they don't have a catalog and I couldn't find a website for them. They seemed to be a "Mom and Pop" type of establishment and the business seems to be attached to their home. I had a good little visit with the proprietor but I didn't buy anything. They had Norsk, Svensk, Dansk, og Finsk items for sale including Norwegian Bunad silver and several scandinavian cooking items. I wonder if they weren't going out of business because they had several sales on. Lovely store.

AND THEN....Dave took me to The Yarnery on Grand Avenue! Grand Avenue is an upscale shopping district in St. Paul where several of the businesses are in old houses. I have been following them on their blog for several months now and I was absolutely THRILLED to be there in person! I didn't take any pictures of the shop itself because somehow my camera had fallen out of my purse onto the floor of the car and we didn't notice it was missing until we got there. They stocked any and all of my favorite brands including KAUNI yarn!!! I even told them that I'd never seen that for sale in the US and that Mom and I had traveled to Estonia TWICE to get that yarn! I came away with these purchases and I was worried about my camera (I wasn't sure if I'd set it down when I paid at Cossetta's and forgotten it or dropped it or whatever) but we had to park in the parking ramp because it was a busy Saturday shopping day. Would you believe that the time it took to park, walk to the store, ogle at the yarn, pay at the store, and then return the car and leave took less than 30 minutes!?! Dave kept saying he'd go back to the car to check and I said, "No, I'll hurry." And he actually SAID to me, "I don't want you to have to hurry in the yarn shop." Did I mention that he is a keeper? :)

Happy Early Valentine's Day!

Anyone who has eaten my sugar cookies knows I pack them between layers of waxed paper and I always joke that I need to endorse Cut-Rite Wax Paper! I made these yesterday AFTER Deedee left town for the big sale. As much as I love feeding these to people, I WHINE the entire time I'm baking and frosting these wretched things. Dave mentioned that he really liked the Christmas sugar cookies I sent home with him but I didn't need to make them. I joked with him that, "If my baby wants sugar cookies, he will GET sugar cookies!" I needed to make them though to take to work and home to my parents. And of course he got his own personal stash sent home with him!

Field Trip!

Dave and I went to Clear Lake yesterday morning to visit the Larson's Mercantile and a few antique shops. I LOVE Pyrex and bought these 2 pieces! I'd never seen this design before and I LOVE pukey shades of green and they happen to match my oven!!! These are covered in olives! I think olives are pretty but I don't particularly like eating them! I'll eat sliced black olives in salads or on pizzas but I can't abide green olives. One dish is a shallow divided dish and the other is a deeper but smaller serving dish and of course the lids can be used as serving pieces.

I have to be honest and say I am STILL disappointed since that store changed management because they now have only plastic Red Heart acrylic yarn and cotton Sugar and Cream yarn. Gone are the days when they sold Lopi and Collinette. I have been very good on my fabric diet but I cheated and bought 3 yards of stash. The brown background fabric of kitchen items was one of my cuts.

The other two were these lovely 2 cuts: one of zinnia flowers and the other of this scattered vegetable print! LOVE those eggplants! Dave is SO patient with me! :)

Oh the humanity!

My lower element in my antique oven went out just before the big bake sale! Timing! This put a serious kink in my bake sale ambitions as I was without oven or stove for almost a week while I waited on the maintenance man to bring me my new part and repair it. And on that note, there MUST be a name for this shade of green. My mother used to have a matching oven and fridge in the shade of "Harvest Gold" and this hearkens back to that era! I can't complain though because this oven has seen a lot of mileage and has served me very well. In the end I made 2 big batches of Oat Square Cereal snack mix and 12 cups of sugared/spiced mixed nuts and a double batch of those brownie sandwich cookies. I didn't have time to get my kringla ambitions baked and I've now got four pints of sour cream in my fridge to get used up. Today is the big sale and I hope it goes well. I talked myself down by rationalizing that maybe people in Waterloo won't know what kringlas are and it also sounds like there will be home baking as far as the eye can see. I hope it goes well though. Deedee and Melissa promised they would take lots of pictures of the "Spread".

Get Your Craft On!

Melissa and Deedee came over tonight for a High Octane Super Crafty Fun Night to finish up a bunch of projects/items for her upcoming fundraising sale which will be held next weekend at her hometown church in Waterloo. We got A LOT DONE!!! What a productive evening!
We finished 6 Valentine-themed 100% cotton kitchen towels. I didn't take a picture of the final flourishes but we rolled them up and tied them with magenta metallic chenille stems.
We got some assembly line action going and started and finished 9 reusable rice-filled microwaveable heating pads. These are 12" x 12" with 6 compartments stitched in and filled with regular old long grain white rice. You nuke these in the microwave for 1 minute at a time and they are a wonderful source of moist heat for your aches and pains. We used almost 20 pounds of rice when all was said and done. The neon green and Valentine ones were originally scrub tops that went wrong because of incorrect thread tension from my old and retired sewing machine so we did some environmental re-using and re-purposing!
Deedee and Melissa had previously worked on over 20 sets of coasters made from glazed tiles and stickers. They finished them off by applying felt circles to the bottoms and tying them into sets with ribbons.
They had also made SCORES and SCORES of bath bombs and tonight packaged and labeled them. These were my favorite items from the evening! I can't brag enough about bath bombs, especially at this time of year because they make your skin feel and smell SO GOOD! The only warning I'll give about these is that you can't shave your legs in bath bomb water or you'll have a hairy ring around the tub and that you have to take great care when stepping out of the tub with these or you can slip.

And throughout our activities, we sustained ourselves on a pasta and crab meat salad that I was particularly proud of! My lower oven element went out yesterday. I had originally planned on making cheese stuffed pasta shells to feed us but this was a good substitute!

Fun!!!!

Well sort of... I was on call last night and Melissa came over with carry out Chinese food and we worked on felted soap. We started out with some smelly oval Dove soaps which we later learned should have been square or rectangular shaped bars for greater felting ease. We also started out using merino top for the fiber but it was too slippery and smooth and we wound up with floppy hair balls on a bar of soap. We gave up twice and then tried once more with a mohair/wool batt I'd gotten years ago at Austin's Mohair and Gifts and it finally worked! Melissa has an aversion to cotton balls and anything fuzzy/fibery but she was a real sport. We felted 8 bars and our hands were pruny and then we quit. We'll sell these at her fundraising event next week. These were fun...once they finally worked!

FO--Love Knot bag

I finally finished my Swing Bag made of a fabric wrapper from Lush. They are a very green company that sells shampoos, conditioners, lotions, moisturizers, bath bombs, and beauty products. They took a leaf from traditional Japanese Furoshiki wrapping and advocate re-usable gift-wrapping using scarves they also sell. I visited the Lush shop in the Mall of America almost a year ago and bought a scarf for use and one to cut up for fabric! It says 'Love Knot' all over it and I lined it with a lime green fabric with bold black lines.

FO's--Candle Mats

I finished 5 candle mats this weekend for Melissa to sell during her Valentine's fundraising for her dad. I sewed literally hundreds of tiny buttons onto felt and then blanket stitched the bottom layers onto the tops. I love tiny buttons and I hope these sell for her. If not, that is ok and we'll all have new Valentine decorations. I also went and saw The King's Speech and can't say enough about this movie!!! Go and see it if it is near you!

Mock Macaroons

These are by no means macaroons but I am just loving filled sandwich cookies lately. Instead of whipped egg whites, almond flour and powdered sugar, these cookies are made of chewy brownie and filled with colored cream cheese frosting. I made a test batch of these this week in preparation for our big fundraising bake sale. These were a big hit at work so I think they will sell at the big sale. I was admiring them as I was packing them up and was just reminded of chocolate macaroons and they're a snap to make! Combine 2 boxes of devil's food cake mix, 4 eggs, and 2/3 c. oil. Mix together and it forms quite a stiff dough. I use my small scoop to portion out the dough and bake 18 to a pan at 350 for 7 minutes. Cool completely and then frost with 8 oz. cream cheese and 1 stick of butter mixed with 4 c. powdered sugar. I got about 45 sandwiches from this batch and 1 batch of frosting will frost 2 batches of cookies.

Fundraising!

My dear friend Melissa's dad has been stricken with leukemia and their family struggle began back in October. He is now gearing up for a series of bone marrow transplants and stem cell transplants at Mayo which will include a 3 month stay at a transplant house in Rochester. Melissa has undertaken a massive fundraising campaign to help cover the incidental costs of these procedures and she and Deedee have made scores of bath bombs to sell. Last night she and I got together to make over 10 lbs. of scented glycerin soaps.
We used a very user friendly soap base and melted, colored, scented and molded over 40 bars last night. I've made glycerin soaps before but this particular brand was just a pleasure to work with! It cooled quickly and didn't bubble up like other brands I've used. We made a variety of colors and fragrances and fooled around with adding glitter.

I can't say enough how easy this project is. I've said it before, if you can make ICE, you can make glycerin soaps! We also enjoyed fooling around with my new panini grill I got at Aldis! I have ALWAYS wanted one of those ever since I bought a panini on the street in Paris back in 2001! I baked fresh pita breads and we had fun stuffing them with ham and cheddar, chicken-basil-mozzarella-marinara, etc. and then flattening/grilling/heating them on this fabulous new appliance! It was a tasty mid-craft meal :) For our next Crafty Fun Night, we'll have to try using it with slices of rustic bread and we'll take pictures!

We were able to experiment with the colorings and glitter and in the end, with our 10 lbs. of soap base, we made 40 viable bars of soap and a few experiment bars (that I'm TOTALLY going to shower with today!!!). I'd already had a few different varieties of molds and we made good use of them. I love smelly soap and I hope they sell. Deedee and Melissa and I sat around my table 2 weeks ago and had a very successful 'board meeting' and brainstormed all kinds of ideas of things to make and businesses to contact, etc. Melissa will also be having a church-wide bake sale at her family church in Waterloo. I know I don't have scores of blog readers but if anyone has more ideas or is interested in purchasing any baking or soaps or bath bombs, please contact me. We will also be selling hand-sewn Valentine felt candle mats, hand-made Valentine 100% cotton tea towels, rice filled reusable heating pads, hand-made coaster sets, hand-knit 100% cotton dishrags, market bags and dish towels that button over drawer handles, orange Leukemia awareness ribbons/bracelets/magnets and other awareness items, and tons and tons of delicious home baking. She has gotten the word out and their entire congregation has gotten involved in pledging to donate baked goods. It is wonderful to see how this whole undertaking has snowballed! Please contact me if you're interested in supporting this very good cause! :)

Complete Radio Silence...

We have finally had our family Christmas and survived the holiday season so I can safely post pictures of my sister-in-law's mittens. These were knit from the pattern in the book Folk Mittens. I have made at LEAST 3 pairs of these from this pattern (including a pair for myself) with the same needles and same brand and weight of yarn, but for some reason these were much tighter! I must be knitting tighter in my old age. My pair is at least 7-8 years old so maybe they've stretched out over time. I got through almost an entire mitten and got too nervous about the final fit and started over. Amy was happy to get them though. I'd knit her a pair years ago and she'd actually worn a big hole in the palm. I've heard of people wearing holes in their socks but never their mittens! ;)