Enough fiber in your diet?

When I visited my sister in Japan a million years ago, I noticed that many restaurants not only had pictures of the food on the menu, but also plastic replicas of the entrees in glass cabinets on display.

Lately I have had the urge to crochet food. Sweet Food. Baked goods. Cake, Pie, Chocolate Roll!

Why? I have no idea, but it is fun. I do not intend to actually bake edible goodies. The replicas are satisfying my sweet tooth for now.

Greetings

Greetings from The Great Wolf Lodge, Wisconsin Dells.

Having a good time, wish you were here!

Snow day and night

Monday is my day off, but more often than not it turns into a day of tying up loose ends. I had planned to putz around and do whatever I felt like (and I did do some of that), but things never turn out quite the way you think.

Dave and I went to one of my favorite thrift shops, to find out that it didn't open until 12 and we were there at 9:30 AM, so back home we went. A stop at the grocery store and various other errands. Including Dave baking. Then it was noon, time to go to the thrift shop. I scored big on buttons today. Meanwhile, it had started snowing and snowing and snowing. I always pick Emili up on Mondays from school .. Today's drive was a bit more challenging with all the snow on the road. I brought Emili back to our house and we worked on our "secret paper mache projects". See last weeks post.

The snow continues, and I crocheted a cupcake for Emili and also made a few for myself. Of course Emili's cupcake has lots of BLING. The bling came from the thrift shop also.

The snow continues. Emili's mom arrives and decides that they must camp out at our house tonight. Too much snow to venture back home and so the pajama party begins. Somewhere along the evening Emili decided that she needed another cupcake. I told her that I would make her another one only if she wrote a story about cupcakes for me. Here is a photo of Emili with her 2 confections and the story!

Who know what else will happen this evening, but I am sure that it will be fun no matter how much snow we get! Snowed in and loving it!

What to do when it's cold?

Stay home and finish those projects. 3 things were finished today. two felted bags and the February "sock of the month".

All three items were very near the finish line,,, so I did not work very hard..

Cold, colder, coldest

Remember cold??? Here in Wisconsin , we seem to have forgotten for a few years.. People are talking about it being cold when the temps are in the twenties, that is not cold!

Today it is cold. -12 when we woke this morning... At the risk of sounding like and old fogey I will make the statement " I remember when........." and proceed to tell stories of "years ago" (another old person's phrase) , when it was truly cold.

On my eighteenth birthday I stayed home from school and helped my Dad make a fence... It was cold that day... sunny, and the mercury did not rise past -5 all day. The story of why we had to make a fence on that particular day is long, complicated and a little fuzzy in my memory.... but the cold remains a vibrant memory... that was 1975.

I stopped writing and started searching for weather records just now,,,, I can't seem to find a site that tells what the temps were on a specific day, but I did find this good site for weather stories from Wisconsin. I plan to spend some time there when I am finished telling my story.

In January of 1982, my then husband and I moved our family and household about 35 miles across Dodge county. We had two little girls, they stayed with my parents that day, while we moved furniture, clothes, and everything else. It was cold that day....the house we moved into was a lovely old brick Victorian...... it was so cold there was frost on the INSIDE walls. All the pipes were frozen... another -10 day... and that night it snowed! Don 't let anyone tell you that it is ever too cold to snow... It snowed a lot that night. The house had a good furnace, but with the doors constantly being opened for furniture to pass through , the furnace could not keep up.

Remember when furnaces required chimneys...? We all drew picture like this one, with smoke billowing out of the brick chimney on the roof.

Now here is our exhaust vent today....
Note the icicles,,, that's cold!

Reading

I have been reading again. Reading for entertainment had been banned for a few weeks before the Holidays, because I cannot knit and read at the same time. Well, maybe I could knit something mindless, but it was not mindless knitting that needed to be finished before Christmas. My wonderful friends at the shop gave me a generous gift certificate to my favorite book store, which I spent promptly and without hesitation.

I finished "Making Money", by Terry Prachett

A wildly entertaining book....I have read several by the same author....enjoyed them all... so funny and clever.

Now I am reading a book that is very different from the first,,,, it is March: A Novel, by Geraldine Brooks. It is a fictional ( of course) account of the father, Peter March, of "Little Women"

If you remember, in "Little Women" the father is away at the Civil War..... this book is riveting and provides details about his travels. Sometime last spring I read the authors "Year of Wonder" which is a story about the plague... I am anxious the read her other books....

My parents deserve my eternal gratitude for many things, but high on the list is their teaching me to entertain myself with reading...... as a child we were allowed to stay awake as late as we wanted, if we were reading... I intend to do just that tonight!

Life is messy

No matter your perspective, life can be messy.

Messy can be fun, just look at what fun Em and I had with paper mache yesterday!As I mixed up the paste in an old loaf pan, Em said " Are we going to put our actual fingers in that stuff?"

The projects are drying today,,, and are intended to be surprises.... so no photos yet.

Today started early with a busload of shoppers at Loose Ends. The women were from Nancy's Notions . Swamped early.... after that it was a quiet morning. Betty was trying to finish a shawl, and complaining that it was taking forever..... She has made a zillion of these shawls... here is Doris modeling one of Betty's creations.

Meanwhile, I finished a wrap that I started before Christmas.This wrap looks OKAY, but not at all what I was trying to do.... back to the drawing board... I will start again...

Betty was still not finished with her project....... then we took a good look at it.

Do you see how the right side looks HUGE compared to the left? See that nice row of eyelets near the middle of the shawl?? We discovered that instead of "yarn over, knit two together" , she had done "yarn over, knit two"......thus increasing the number of stitches by a third!!!! We laughed and laughed.... What else is there to do but rip it out? So she ripped.I was still laughing at Betty's error, until I discovered a wayward cable in my own knitting. The it was my turn to rip!

Life is messy....

I almost forgot...... Dave bought me a lovely jar chockful of vintage buttons today.. Is he a great husband or what?

Valentine Elves

I needle felted a whole tribe of Elves today........... I wonder what the term for a group of elves is.... tribe, flock, gaggle, What?

They are difficult to photograph,, but they are cute,,, and for sale at Loose Ends.

Still January

Already 7 days in

This Section written on Sunday

Already seven days into to the new year and no word from me via the blog. I don't know what is wrong , but I can not seem to find anything to write about.

I certainly have lots of things filling my hours these days.... but nothing is exciting or new. I must be in a post-holiday slump....

We took the trees down today. I enjoyed packing away the ornaments as much as

decorating the tree.Getting the tree back in the storage box is less fun. Sorta like stuffing myself into pantyhose. A lot of tugging and grunting.... and duct tape.

Luckily, Dave hauled it into the basement.

This Section written on Monday

In the world of knitting/ fiber, I have a few things to report.

Some of you may know this tiny loom makes little squares. I got the loom at a thrift shop for 25 cents, as you can see by the label.
I also purchased a few squares the previous owner had made, for $2.

Just a few, 576, in all! All colors.

The box has been waiting in my basement for at least 4 years....

I put some together for a funky 60's style scarf. Lots and Lots of squares leftover.......... Any ideas?

A crocheted and felted vessel/bag in progress

Knitted mittens with boucle' cuff

And yet more mittens sewn from recycled wool sweaters..... I made soooooo many of these this season. I still love to make them, the concept of something good from old junk appeals to me.