DameWendy is Looking for a Few Good Knitters for the Blanket of Love

Hi everyone,

DameWendy is looking for a little help. Her friends mother is terminally ill and she would like a group of knitters and crocheters to lend a hand to create a Blanket of Love to comfort her friend's mom during this time.

I signed up for a square and would encourage everyone who reads this message to visit her site or Wendy's Raverly page for additional information. She has had 17 people sign up so far, and would welcome any additional support. Please visit her site for the whole story and lend your support! you can also email her directly at: mailto:wendydorrel@gmail.com

E.

Machine Knitters Guild Knit-in

Tomorrow we are having a machine knitters knit-in at the Hopkins Center for the Arts and I cant wait! I bought a knitting machine last year and despite my good intentions, I have never even taken it out of the box--the whole process seems so overwhelming! So, I plan on doing just that tomorrow, learning how to work a machine I paid a lot of money for but have done nothing with but find new places to stash it until this weekend...stay tuned!

Yarn Across Minnesota

I went to one of my favorite yarn stores yesterday, Needlework Unlimited, to satiate that never ending urge to add more yarn to my stash and I heard something interesting. Laura told me that Minnesota has the highest number of yarn stores per capita than any other state. Can you believe that? I guess I can kinda believe it, I mean we do get rather "robust" winters here. But the most per capita!!! I found a pretty good list of all the yarn stores at The Daily Knitter. I think it would be nice to visit them. I have favorites in the Twin Cities--Minneapolis to be more specific, but I think it would be nice to expand my horizons. I'll start with Saint Paul and go from there.

Borealis Yarns
1340 Thomas Ave
(651) 646-2488

The Yarnery
840 Grand Ave.
Phone: (651)-222-5793

BeYaGi
49 Little Canada Rd E
(651) 482-1654

Three Kittens Yarn Shoppe
805 Sibley Memorial Hwy
Phone: (651)-457-4969

Sheepy Yarn Shoppe (White Bear Lake)
2185 3rd Street
Phone: (651)-426-5463

The Barbecuing Vegetarian

Memorial Day. It presented us with a dilemma, should we barbecue or not. I was against the whole idea because I don't know how to grill and Ron (God Bless him) is a vegetarian who will occasionally eat chicken so long as there are no bones in it. Now, being a carnivore, that doesn't exactly inspire confidence. I mean how can you possibly grill meat if you don't eat it?

So after some urging from my mom, I gave in and let him barbecue. It took a while to get the grill put together (no, we didn't actually have a grill) and the coals hot (second time is the charm!) but after that it was all good. And an hour later we had barbecued chicken breasts.

Ron brought in a strange little tenderloin piece for us to taste together, because frankly I don't think either of us knew how this was going to turn out. So, we tasted it....and it was WONDERFUL!! I am so glad I trusted him and we gave it a shot. We had a wonderful bone-free Memorial Day meal ( I made baked beans, and a salad with jicama and heirloom tomatoes)

Following dinner, we watched some of the memorial day tributes. It was so sad, to see all those solders injured in the Iraq war. What is even more upsetting is that the government doesn't do what it promises for them when they return. So many young lives...God bless them all for their service to this country. I hope our government will hold up its end of the bargain.

Spare Room Knits on Ravelry

Like so many others out there, I recently joined Ravely. Well, I actually joined last November before I started my new job, but it took me a couple of months to get settled in there, so I just recently started adding content to my page. I kinda felt like an ingrate. Here I was with an opportunity to be one of the beta testers of what has to be the coolest knitting communities around and I just brushed it aside.

But I am past that now! I am slowly but surely adding content to my Ravely page. I even tried to add the cute little Ravelry badge to my blog. In fact I tried like a kabillion times and I still couldn't get that darn thing to work!! So here is a link to my Ravelry site. I will try posted on the blog somehow. Any way, check me out. I tried to take some creative pictures of my yarn stash!

http://www.ravelry.com/people/SpareRoomKnits

Crochet Eye Patch

Hi all,

Now I know this is a bit unusual, but there is a story behind this one. You see two days ago, I was in a meeting with a couple of coworkers and one of them, Cecilia ( the lady in the photo) was having allergy problems so one of her eyes were red. After discerning that she was OK, we started having a bit of fun with it. And of course at some point an eye patch came up. Then my other coworker, Laura, "triple dog dared" me to make an eye patch. She Triple. Dog. Dared Me.

Now of course you can't refuse a triple dog dare so this is what I came up with. What do you think?

I didn't want to do just plain black, cause lets face it, everyone expects that. And I tried to make it pretty, but ya know, I think I will do a bit more work on it. Consider this one the prototype.




E.

Mother's Day Present

When I got home from Shepard's Harvest, Ron had my Mother's Day present waiting for me. Guess what I got for Mother's Day...no its not knitting related...I got a brand new Kitchen Aid Mixer! I have wanted one of these for like 10 years. Now I can finally retire my old one! Ron was so sweet to get this for me. I love him dearly!

Sheperd’s Harvest Sheep & Wool Festival!

Here are my photos from Sheperd's Harvest. I had such a fabulous time! It was so great most of the process.

Knit Out 2008

Knit Out 2008 – Ron went with me! Check out the photos. I met like everyone, Niki Epstein, Vicki Howell, Brett Bara, Debbie McComber, and the Lion Brand Lion!




Oh, and for Valentine's Day, I got a meat thermometer....I actually wanted it. (I love to cook)

Confessions of a Delinquent Blogger: January

worked!

Confessions of a Delinquent Blogger: Decemeber 07

Christmas – made scarves for the boys
A shawl for myself

Montly Update: November

Started a new job at Allianz Life! It’s a great company and the job certainly keeps me hopping!