Tomat Sokker

I don't know why I call these tomato socks, but I just like saying "Tomat Sokker". I had this brilliant idea of packaging all my gift socks into the tomato cartons I use up. I thought it was a cute idea, and of course now I have PILES of plastic cartons piled up in my kitchen. These are for my sister for her birthday. I've been working on them here and there for months and LYING to her when she'd ask, "Oh no, these aren't for anyone special. I just liked the yarn." She LOVES red, so she knew when she saw them that they MUST be for her! I made a lot of progress on them at the Field of Dreams outing, and now that they are finished, I have the next pair already on needles! Portable entertainment I tell ya!

Antiques

This girlfriend and I ALSO hit the antique store this week...and I found a few things I couldn't live without. I found a pristine copy of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", some fabulous Martha-esque metal hostess trays, a print (I forget what they're called but you need the little view-finder thing to look at them) of Rue de Rivoli in Paris, lots of fabulous TRIMS and shell buttons, and a copy of the book "Heidi" I had as a kid, as well as a copy of "Ola". We had "The Terrible Troll Bird" and "Trolls" by this same author/illustrator team growing up, but I had never heard of this one! It is such a lovely little Norwegian story, and all the characters in the book wear bunads and there is rosemaling on every page! The poor thing was in terrible condition, but we'll tape it to death and I'm sure my nieces will still enjoy it!

New Tools!

A girlfriend of mine had to go check on something at Jo-Ann Fabrics and I didn't need anything, but I went along just to supervise...and I found THESE! Those are circular knitting needles with wooden needles and fashion color plastic cords, GLITTER plastic knitting needles, and tomato pincushions (you can never have too many) in colors I have never come across! And I found some cute colored pins in the dollar bin to go with them, and some prewound machine bobbins in fashion funky colors but I forgot to put those in the picture. I don't even want to put them away, I just want to keep them out where I can look at them and play with them!

He Touched Me!

But sadly, because of my occupation, I have since washed my hand.

THANK YOU for coming back to Iowa, Mr. Costner! It was a lovely afternoon/evening spent with you! We were all thrilled to see you!

Field of Dreams

My friend and I went back to her hometown on the 11th for more wedding preparations and the bachelorette party and spent the afternoon in Dyersville to visit the "Field of Dreams" movie site. I had never seen the entire movie in one sitting, but the house and field were as I remembered it, complete with the porch swing! And did I mention that KEVIN COSTNER MADE AN APPEARANCE?!? Netflix was doing a tour across the country of movies and the locations on which they were filmed. They were moving on to Estes Park, Colorado for a screening of "The Shining", but Kevin Costner and his band were to play a concert that night. We milled around the grounds, bought souvenirs at the stand (all proceeds go to maintain the ball diamond), ate brats and hamburgers, and then at 1500 Mr. John Dunbar HIMSELF appeared on the ball diamond and pitched to the kids in the crowd for about an hour and ran the bases with them. He did a sound check with his band and addressed us as a crowd for a bit (at that time it was just mainly local-ish people who had driven themselves to the event). I even overheard a few people who happened to be in the Dyersville area and were hard core baseball fans just visiting the site say that they had no idea Costner would be there! What a stroke of luck for them! We dinked around some more (this is why it's good to be a knitter because you can entertain yourself ANYWHERE for any length of time with a sock project in your bag) and the concert began at 1900. By that time, BUSLOADS of people had arrived. The paper the next day reported a crowd of 5,000 and the organizers had only planned for about 3,000. He and his band played for about 75 minutes and it was a nice rock/countryish mix of music. They even sang a song about Leland, Iowa which is in MY neck of the woods! And did I mention that he SHOOK my hand as he came down the center aisle? I've never actually *swooned* before, but I think I came pretty close that afternoon! It was such a good day, and the entire event was free of charge! And I wished we had made a sign to hold up for him, but I couldn't think of an appropriate message in Sioux or how to spell it correctly! I must say I will always thank that man for the films "Dances With Wolves" and "JFK". They even played a montage of his films before he came down the center aisle, complete with my favorite scene from "JFK": Jim Garrison's closing arguments, "Do not forget your dying king." *sigh*

Greatest Hits!

It really bites that I have to start all over with this, but I enjoy full bragging rights of the stuff I have made over the last few months, so I will repost some of my favorite projects before adding more truly fabulous content! ;) And I'm humble too!

Hello Again

My blog was eaten by Blogger or deleted somehow, hmmm, imagine that. It had been being naughty for two or so weeks and not letting me post any pictures, so I'll repost that stuff. Otherwise, I have some pics of recent kitchen adventures and some absolutely ripping commentary to go with it! And there was much rejoicing...