Lunch with a rabbit named Elliana

It is howling outside my window, gray, wet, gloomy, yup, perfect knitting weather!  While I don't look forward to slogging my way to and from work each day, I do love curling up at the end of the day with my knitting.  Now if I could only knit/spin as fast as my mind keeps planning on "just one more project."

Emily had her ortho appointment yesterday.  No more cranking of the device to widen her upper jaw, it is where they want it to be.  In order to keep the device locked into place, they thread a wire through it, wrap it around, twist the multi wire strands together...at that point the dentist stopped, and asked her, how she felt.  She had long wires sticking out of her mouth.  Her reply?  Like a fish on a pole!  Laughter erupted in the dentist office.  My girl, she has a way with words.

I visited the Wild Wool Market Saturday, it was nice to meet Susan and get a sense for the space so when I show up next month I have a better idea of what to expect.

And as promised, we went to Rainforest Cafe where Anna was tortured by having her picture taken in the wild.  Her response was not surprising but still made me laugh.

We managed to enjoy our lunch before the great hoards of people also decided to have their lunch and after enjoying our nachos and appetizers (best kinda lunch around) we headed to Build a Bear.  Where with only a nominal wait time, my girls each piced out a new friend.  (shhhhh don't tell any of Anna's friends she picked out a new bear).

And here to show her delight is Emily who is hugging the lovable and softly squishable, Elliana.  A perfect ending to our day.

Friday Fun

I can't tell you how happy I am that it is Friday.  This week has been a long one.  Emily had another procedure done at Children's on Tuesday.  She did great, it was fast and I can't say enough kind things about all the staff at Children's in Minneapolis.  They are caring and warm and compassionate.  Anyway, Emily did great and one more thing is done. 

Between work and doctor stuff, I'm tired.  Like bone weary tired.  I don't have a break in sight until Thanksgiving, so I'll just keep moving on.  Sometimes that is the best you can do, just keep moving.

I did get some happy news, I got a special knitting order from a person who bought something from my last craft fair.  So I'm happily knitting away on two pair of fingerless mitts.  smile

I've spun up a bobbin full of citrusy yellow singles.  I have another 4 ounces to go before I can ply them together.  Not sure how fast that will happen, since tomorrow we will head off to MOA to shop at Build A Bear as Emily's reward for being such a good patient and getting past this procedure.  Lunch at Rainforest Cafe and then on the way home, we will stop at the Wild Wool Festival, I'm participating next month, so I thought it would be helpful to introduce myself and get a feel for the space etc.  If I can remember, I'll try to take pictures of our adventures.

Anna is a bit miffed as I will need to pick her up from a sleep over at the very EARLY hour of 10 am tomorrow so she can go with us.  Boy the eye rolls I got with that one.  smile....

Aftermath from craft fair

Well I survived the craft fair last Saturday.  The day was beautiful, sunny and warm.  Which I think was a bit of a hamper for me.  Who wants to try on wool hats or scarves wearing flip flops and shorts in 84 degrees?  Not too many it turns out.  I can't say enough good things about the fair itself.  Very well organized, over a 100 vendors, booths ready for you when you walked in, check-in lasted all of 3 mintues.  So the fair itself was well done.  There was a steady stream of people, but very few of those people were buying from me or others in my vicinity.  Oh well, that is a craft fair, you truly never now how it is going to go.  The good things that happened were many.  I had so many lovelycomments on my items, they loved the colors and the quality of my work.  Take a look at our booth....

the laundry rack really worked out well I thought, my yarns looked very nice and it was an eye catching start of the booth.  My wheel tucked in nicely in the corner when I wasn't using it.  The brown and white star hat in the bottom left sold.  The lady wanted it for skiing and I think it will be wonderful for that.


Here is Ellen, sipping her coffee as we wait for the start of the event.  You can see her embroidered linens next to her.  She did well and was happy after the fair. 

Now for the funnies.  I did sit and spin, that was a huge draw, many people stopped, some grinning in deilght, others staring trying to figure out what the heck I was doing.  One young kid, just kept muttering "weird, weird"  One gentleman was so fascinated, I showed him the roving, explained the process basically from shearing to dying the fleece to creating the roving to my spinning it.  The best though was a woman, looking intently at what I'm doing and saying "did you make it?"  now I'm thinking, well yes, I am making "it" but I said, yes, I'm making yarn.  She got a very puzzled look on her face and said "no, you made that right?" and she pointed to my wheel!  I said, no, I bought the wheel from a company and she just was shocked and said she didn't know any companies made such things anymore.  I guess she thought I whittled my wheel out of fallen timber from my backyard?  I explained there are many companies that make wheels.  She just couldn't imagine that. 

The other funny thing is that even though I 'm sitting there spinning away, right next to a rack filled with yarn with labels saying "handspun" on them, most people did not realize that I made that yarn.  smile...

It was a long day but all in all a good day.  I gave out many cards with my info on it, I believe several have checked out the blog so far, maybe they will stick around.

Next up is the Wild Wool Market on November 27 at the Susan Hensel Art Gallery in Minneapolis.  Who knows what will happen then!

But the other nice thing of having the craft fair behind me?  I can now knit things for the sole reason I want to.  Not because I think they may sell.  So Yggdrasil is back in the basket next to my bed.  The weather has cooled off plenty so I can happily knit again with a huge pile of magnificent wool in my lap.  And just because I cast on something new a couple nights ago, in the Norwegian-Handknits-Heirloom-Designs-Vesterheim book there is a lovely work day shawl, it is knit as a large garter stitch center section, then you knit a lace border to it.  I think it would be a great shawl, but also a nice baby blanket.  I had a 1200 yard skein of Briar Rose yarn, in a deep red/black mix of superwash wool.  So I am just mindlessly knitting garter stitch rows and it is delightful....pictures next time.

If you are someone I met at the craft fair, I'd love to hear from you...

MN in the fall

Fall is my favorite season, it is crispy blue skies, winds rustling leaves, dry leaves crunching under foot and cool mornings with mild afternoons.  You pretend that you don't know what is soon coming (sshhh snow I'm talking about you).  Instead you marvel that leaves morph from varying shades of green to reds, oranges, yellows and browns.  That grass starts to feel crunchy under your feet in the morning.  Playing and laughing as you can see your breath in the morning waiting for the bus.  Fall is the best.

Knitting has come to a screeching halt as the preparations for the first craft fair is totally consuming me.  I did finish the very last item to go into the fair basket last night.  This scarf was what I worked on at the bus stop for several months.  While it took a looooong time to finish, when you think that all the time would have been lost time, it is a nice thing.  I used 4 different sock yarns, all but one are left overs from other projects.  I made up a very simple pattern and I'm ultimately very happy with it.  I made some fingerless mitts out of one of the yarns, so it can either become a set or be sold separately.  I introduce you to my fall scarf.  (not a very unique name) 

Tomorrow is the big day, I will be at the Maple Grove Community Center from 9-4 selling my hand spun and knitted items.  At this point, I just want to get there, get everything set up and see what happens.  I'm bringing my wheel, if it is slow, I can happily spin away.  I also think it will get people to stop and look at things to.  Kinda like a living historical exhibit?  Anyway, it will be a potentially very fun day.  I'll keep you posted on what the end results are.  If you are in the area, please come and see me, I'd love to meet you.