Mukluks!

This is my lovely sister-in-law Amy's feet modeling the Mukluk's I knit for my dear friend Deedee's birthday. Amy was the only one with feet similar to Deedee's! This was a really fun and surprisingly quick project. These were knit with Malabrigo 2-ply worsted weight yarn on 2 straight needles. I've been a double pointed needle in-the-round sock knitter ever since I went through LPN school and was too poor to buy Christmas gifts and instead knit thick socks for everyone stuffed with little cheap trinkets. This project originated from some suede and fake fur-lined pre-punched slipper soles made by the Boye company that I got on clearance at Jo-Ann's fabrics. I have since seen these same things at Hobby Lobby and Fiber Trends also makes suede pre-punched soles without the fake fur lining (but I have some on-their-own wool sole inserts I bought in Ireland years ago that I knew I would use someday but at the time I didn't know exactly what for!) I have a leather punch and 2 brown paper sacks full of leather dear skin from my Grandpa Maynerd and these soles would be very easy to construct from scratch and much more sentimental for family members. And the nice thing about making the soles from scratch would be that the knitting would wear out far sooner than the soles so as they wore out, I could repurpose and knit new socks as needed and re-use the soles! The Boye company soles came with a pattern and I have to say it was the strangest thing to knit a sock on 2 needles without a sole! Of course the sole is the leather piece but it really took some thinking to knit a sock in one flat piece and then seam it up the side and sew it to the sole! I was very pleased with the results!

Happy Late Easter!

We had a lovely Easter holiday weekend together with our entire family minus Luke who had to stay in Rochester to work. My home town is a very small town but is very good about sponsoring city-wide activities for the both the youth of the town and the offspring of former citizens home for the holidays. Local businesses get involved and often times the proceeds go towards the upkeep of the town pool. Not many towns of this size can boast a local grocery store let alone a municipal pool. The city hall was also open for the annual Boy Scout Pancake Feed and the library and meeting rooms were also open for raffles. It was very good to be home and to able to show Dave a little of where I grew up.
Mom and Dad returned last week from a trip to the Czech Republic where they enjoyed the Easter markets. I was so jealous! She brought home over a dozen painted real chicken and goose eggs. These are not Ukrainian style eggs in that they are not dyed with wax in a reverse dye technique and are actually painted. She gave me three eggs for my collection of egg cups and I brought out my most Slavic cups for this picture. I got the cup on the far left in the Czech Republic years ago, the one in the middle last year in Russia and I think it is actually meant to be a khokhloma vodka shot glass. The one on the far right was picked up in Bratislava during my short time in Slovakia.
As far as our own Easter eggs, this was the extent of our homemade eggs. I dyed these eggs raw in the shell at my apartment and brought them home for baking. I am a great fan of Father Dominic Garramone and his bread baking shows and years ago wrote down his sweet bread recipe and idea for egg nests. You take basic sweet bread dough (anything used for cinnamon rolls would be fine) and divide a bun/roll's worth of dough into three pieces. Roll and flatten one piece into a base and then roll the other 2 pieces into 10 inch ropes and twist together. Lay this braid around the edges of the base into a nest shape. Let rise for 30 minutes and place a raw in the shell egg in the center of each nest. You can use plain white eggs but dyed eggs on Easter are much more festive! :) Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes or until the bread is golden brown. Place egg cups on the table and serve hot from the oven and you have a lovely warm sweet roll that is delicious with butter and jam and a perfectly cooked medium egg. We're snobs in our family but you might need to instruct people how to eat a cooked egg in the shell: lay the egg lengthwise on your plate and use a table knife to quickly chop off the top 1/3 of the egg guillotine-style. Salt both ends to taste and then use a small teaspoon (ideally an egg spoon) to scoop the flesh out of the top and then the remainder of the egg, salting as needed. Ever since my parents went to Norway where they saw real-live Europeans eating eggs in eggcups, we've eaten hot soft-medium-hard cooked eggs in shells like this. On almost every trip to Europe I've ever made where breakfast is served in the hotel, you will find a basket of hot eggs with a stack of egg cups next to them.

I lied.

I WILL be making one more big batch of these cookies. I'd forgotten all about my cousin Stacy who overcame a benign but menacing brain tumor this last month. She and her family are from Moorhead, MN and survived a real-live brain attack. She was literally struck down by paralyzing headaches, diagnosed and then life flown to Rochester with a pituitary tumor and endured a palliative brain tumor biopsy. She is also pregnant (FINALLY!!!) with their second child and was a REAL TROOPER throughout the entire ordeal. Now the big plan is for a cesarean section birth in November and when recovered from that, will undergo another brain surgery to remove the remainder of the tumor. I have to say that my sister and her family were invaluable too because they hosted Stacy's husband, daughter, dog, parents, siblings and etc. I am a rotten cousin and worked throughout the hospitalization but I mean to send them some sinful goodies. Stacy is a faithful member of Curves and I am sure my treats will do nothing for her lifestyle habits. Back in the day, if you were Norwegian and recently very ill or had just had a baby, the tradition was to bring the invalid a vat full of Rommegrot to promote healing. Unfortunately, rommegrot is made of heavy cream soured on the stove with flour and butter and then sweetened with sugar and cinnamon. This mixture is not exactly mail-safe so I will instead be sending them a package of cookies. John's birthday is also approaching and I'll send him a package as well. I took this picture the night before last as I was baking and Dad gave me the lovely copper bunny cookie cutter used to cut these. I have to put a plug in for the new Harry Potter installment I enjoyed as I frosted cookies. And last night, I brought cookie offerings to 2 different gals at work who saved my Duluth getaway. One gal jumped in the last minute without being asked and offered to assume my Sunday shift and the other gal is in charge of scheduling and put up with my late night and then early morning phone calls to make sure it was alright to make the trade. The gal who traded with me surprised me by asking if she could BUY a dozen cookies to hand out to her nieces and nephews for Easter!

Darn. Knit. (Anyway)

I ended up staying 2 extra nights in Minnesota. We dinked around and enjoyed Duluth and got back to North St. Paul in the afternoon and I spent the night and went to school with Dave on Monday morning. I knitted and played on my netbook with the college's wireless internet. I had asked Dave if we could do some antiquing and he suggested we go to Stillwater, MN for that. While he was in class, I did a search and wouldn't you know it, there is a yarn AND fabric shop in Stillwater!?! And not just ANY fabric, but AMY BUTLER! Did I mention that Dave is a good sport?

We drove over there and very easily found the Darn. Knit. (Anyway) shop located on 423 South Main Street. It is a very easy to find shop in a lovely historic brick building.
This shop caters to both knitters and spinners as well as stitchers! They had an awesome selection of Amy Butler fabrics and patterns. This picture shows what appears to be large balls of yarn which are in fact rolled up balls of merino top slivers for spinning!
They stocked all kinds of Malabrigo yarn in worsted singles, worsted plied and bulky. I didn't think their selection of books was the greatest but that is ok. Very good selection of needles and tools. They also offered classes in sewing and knitting and spinning.

Plenty of Cascade and Brown Sheep in worsted and bulky. Lovely atmosphere!
We walked around the main street of the town and saw the bridge. The bridge had very recently been re-opened due to flooding concerns. This bridge is similar to the bridge in Duluth as the entire thing raises up to accommodate boats.
Here is the water level next to the bridge. We went into several antique malls and stores on the main street. As lovely as this town is, it is geared towards tourists and the prices of things reflected that. The restaurants and ice cream shops seemed very reasonable so an overnight stay in a B & B or pension would be a lovely weekend activity. We DID make a stop at the Olde Thyme Candies shop on main and I came away with 4 peanut butter fudge balls, as well as a pound of their pecan turtles and a sack of assorted salt water taffy. Num num! The taffy they sell is made in Salt Lake City but the nut brittles, fudge, and truffles are all made there on site. They also had a huge selection of candies in barrels in the shop. It reminded me of Willy Wonka's! Dave got a bag of his beloved Swedish Fish! I will be bringing home some awesome treats next weekend for our family Easter get-together!
After our afternoon together in Stillwater, I was still dragging my feet to go home and ended up staying Monday night too. Dave drove me around the Twin Cities and I got a glimpse of the famous Mickey's Diner mentioned often on A Prairie Home Companion! He treated me to a lovely yet sinful supper of a Juicy Lucy at The 5-8 Club in Maplewood!

This morning Dave woke me up when he got up for class and I got ready and hit the road by 1015 and none too soon! The snow and rain started flying just as I got outside The Cities and maybe 30 minutes after I arrived in Mason City, they closed Interstate 35! I will take a short nap to recover from white-knuckling the wheel and then I have to get up and bake Easter frosted sugar cookies. I will whine the entire time but I will also take great comfort knowing that this is the last time I will bake them before October! When I said good-bye to Dave's father Don, the weather forecast was then predicting that most of the snow would end up in Iowa and I told him I'd do my best to take it with me. I'm now EATING my words and told Dave to tell Don that he could thank me later! ;)

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! :)