Museum Rat

I had a class and a meeting for work last week and finished the class earlier than planned and had a few hours to dink around. Knowing I didn't DARE take a nap for fear of sleeping through my meeting, I decided to head over to the MacNider Museum. It had been a while since I'd been there so I visited my two favorite paintings and found out about an art contest they'll be having. This one is called "The Spinning Wheel" and is an oil painting by John Castigan. It is a very textured painting and I remember seeing it when I was little on field trips to the museum. I can remember being tempted to touch the paint and obviously hundreds of other people have too because now it is framed behind glass! But I just love this painting.



This one is called "The Watcher" by Marvin C0ne. He was an Iowa painter who studied with Grant Wood. I just love how the perspective is off and makes the painting look a little creepy. And the room pictured is painted in one of my favorite shades of blue.

The Kinney Pioneer Museum hosted it's annual Kids' Day event this week. I had the day off, but of course it was sandwiched between two nights that I did have to work so I stayed up and then went out to demonstrate with my wheel. I only stayed for about 2 hours though because I was falling asleep! I worked on a 1/2 pound of this lovely blue Tencel/Merino fiber blend that I've had for a while now. I'm going to make a DK weight yarn out of it for socks or for lace baby hats for any little boys that will be born soon. They had a lot more hands on activities for the kids like rope making, and knot tying--things like that. Another gal from the spinning group had brought her inkle loom and she had the kids help her warp it. A lot of the kids asked, "Can I try?" when they saw me and I wasn't comfortable with them treadling or drafting so I felt kind of bad. I DID bring along my carders and some wool so I let them do that and I had plenty of different kinds of fibers for them to touch and handle. I'll have to think of different things to bring for next year. The end of September will be their last open house day and they will be making apple cider! I am excited about that and I plan on being there!

Toni Jacket Revisited

I can always find all sorts of excuses as to why it is necessary to either take a break from a large project or start new ones. For all knitting there is a season, be it Christmas time, approaching birthdays, pregnancies, kids who are smaller than adults and therefore their stuff knits up quicker, or dorky whims/free patterns found all over the internet (knitted vegetables for example). I bought this kit from Ram Wools and began knitting it on the day my niece was born. Now I'll totally embarrass myself by telling you that this infamous day was almost *ahem* SIX YEARS ago. I have urgently felt the need to pick up those occupied needles and resume work on this jacket because it will be bee-YEW-tiful when it is finished and I want to wear it this season. I have done some marathon knitting over the past 2 days and finished the back panel and pocket linings! Later today when I wake up, I will begin the right front panel. This sweater is bordered by 6 rows of red in plain garter stitch which is knit on size 4 needles while the fair isle portion is knit on size 6. I can't find my size 4 circular needles (no doubt they are occupied somewhere by some other partially worked project!!) and I avoid using my LONG straight needles as much as possible. I was digging thru my needle arsenal earlier and to my utter delight, I found these! They are the same size and I will get to use them for the first time! I bought these at a dollar type store in Germany last year on my trip! I bought 4 pairs in different sizes and these were my ONLY knitting souvenirs from that trip. We had traveled on a group tour and were only in shopping/non-tourist areas during funny hours of the day or on weekends so EVERY single fiber/yarn shop I had on my list was closed by the time we got there. I was happy to come away with these needles though and I'm excited to christen them tomorrow!

Gold Rush Days!

Gold Rush Days were held in Rochester this weekend and we all converged as a family on my sister and her husband's home, including my dear friend Melissa. You never know what you are going to find there, but this year was marred by the RAIN! It rained constantly all day and you just could not be outdoors so it was very crowded to say the least. Melissa and I must be really slow too because we hadn't even gotten through two buildings before the rest of the family was calling on the cell phone ready to go home for the day. Pictured here are some lovely vintage beads cut from old clothes. This same vendor had trims, appliques, laces, etc. which were gorgeous but too expensive for me. These beads are sitting on a charming tea towel that my sister in law picked up for me on a recent trip to Alabama. I just love it and I'm trying to decide if I want to use it as a towel, or sew it into something. Decisions, decisions. The beads will be bead knitted into SOMETHING but I don't yet know what.

These are 2 FABULOUS Pyrex bowls I also picked up! I absolutely LOVE them! The smaller lidded one was $9.50 and the larger one without a lid was $8.50. I also snapped up a very Martha-esque painted wooden handled slotted spoon for $12.50. My mother has a similar spatula at home and I can't believe how STURDY they are even after all these years. These are shown on my newly acquired French dreaming fabric from SupperBuzzy! Now what to do with THAT?!


I also picked up a new collection of fairy tales called "The Tenggren Tell-It-Again Book" illustrated by Gustaf Tenggren. I absolutely love fairy tales and nursery rhymes and the illustrations seemed familiar, particularly Hansel and Gretel. I wonder if we didn't have one of his books growing up. These were my two favorite pictures from the book. Can you guess why?



And finally what I could not afford: these glorious heddles! I should have taken a business card from these dealers because I've seen them every year that I've been to Nordicfest too. They specialize in Scandinavian pieces. You'd think they'd just held up a museum when in fact they actually sell items to museums. I don't know WHERE they find these pieces, but they are simply devine. None of these heddles were under $500. My other favorites of theirs were some woven pieces, bunad jewelery, boat shuttles, and bridal crowns. Absolutely beautiful!

Just in case...

My friend DeeDee and her mother are big into the local farmers' markets and travel all over selling their produce. They have both been very encouraging when it comes to promoting things I make. I am never organized enough to have any sort of project inventory ready when local craft fairs and the like are in full swing, but I had the idea to whip up a few Avoskas to sell in their stall. An Avoska is a Russian string bag so named because a Soviet comedian once called it such in his routine and the name stuck. Avoska literally means "just in case" in Russian and they're commonly carried in case an opportunity to buy consumer goods arises and you have something to carry it home in. These were knit on US size 15 circular needles with a worsted weight 100% cotton (think dishcloths) yarn in a simple eyelet pattern. They stretch out nicely and will hold a lot. I remember we had a navy blue one growing up and we'd carry our towels and swimming suits to the babysitter's house in it. So far there has been interest in them but no takers. The yarn costs $3 for each bag and they take 2-3 hours to knit. I'm asking $15 for each one which still doesn't make it worth the time and materials, but we'll see. If they don't sell, my girlfriends and sisters and mother will get a new Avoska!

There's just something about whipping eggwhites til glossy...

We had a slumber party at Brenda's house last night. Yes indeed, a slumber party. Melissa and I stayed over and our friends Zak and Summer made an appearance. Brenda made a batch of fabulous barbeque meatballs and twice baked potatoes. DeeDee couldn't make it but we had sweet corn grown by her family. I baked french bread, a tomato tart, and this lemon meringue pie in my favorite Martha Blue antique pie plate. I had a lot of fun playing in the kitchen before the party.

We listened to Sam Cooke half the night and Melissa taught us how to play Train with dominoes. Later we had a few rounds of Idiot during which I layed down some serious smack! Then we had SPA night! We soaked our feet and got them sandal-presentable again, painted our toenails, did exfoliating hand treatments and dead sea salt and clay face masks. I also got a little knitting done. It is always nice to just be together with dear friends! We MUST do this more often! :)

Leftovers

I finished my wrist warmers from the leftovers of my Army Sock Kit using beads I bought in Thirsk, Yorkshire. These were knit with the same size 2 needles I used to knit the socks. I cast on 35 stitches for each one and when finished, there were only about 6 yards of yarn left! So that worked out well! The beads are from a cute little embroidery shop we found on the way to the James Heriot Centre. They are size 5 beads in shades of smoky purple, blue and green and have white stripes on them like African Christmas beads. I can't wait for cooler weather so I can wear them!