Fiber Fool

It doesn’t seem like I spent an entire week in Minnesota, yet the list of things I got done is long enough for at least two weeks I think, LOL! I’m wiped out, but it was a great trip.

Aside from hardly seeing my dad, the timing was good because dad was too busy working on the final cutting of hay and putting up corn silage that mom would have been stuck at home for days on end with not much help getting groceries and the like. I also got to help dad out a bit by mowing their lawn. I swear you could have baled the grass I cut, LOL!

A quick run-down so I don’t forget (not neccessarily in order):

• Downloaded and burned 15 audio books
• Trained dad on downloading and burning audio books
• Went through grandma’s house one more time, collecting a few other momentos (though it felt a bit like a rummage sale I have to say)
• Went through a bunch of old photos of our family that grandma had saved over the years (a photographer she was not, LOL, but more on that in a later post)
• Cooked dinner (Amber) and dessert (Me) for mom and dad with my sister
• Made bullar for my grandparents, mom, and sister
• Helped shuttle my sister when getting some car maintenance done
• Mowed lawn (while totally embarassing myself in the process, more on that too)
• Visited the yarn shop in Lake Lillian
• Helped get mom set up to make several baby afghans for charity (buying the yarn, figuring gauge, teach dad to measure gauge and count rows for her, buying a few pattern books that I’ll later help her transcribe, etc.)
• Did the finishing on one of mom’s baby afghans
• Went to a local art gallery
• Took dad’s pick-up in for some maintenance that had been messed up prior to my arrival (that was a big thing as dad wouldn’t have time for another month or more to take it in)
• Drank lots of coffee (see first bullet point, downloading means coffee shops)
• Got hooked on House (I saw the first six episodes and I love it, unfortunately)
• Played Clue and Scattergories with my sister and our neighbor girl
• Tried the new mediteranean restaraunt in Willmar
• Got to have my favorite Willmar pizza - Jake’s
• Set up the flat screen TV at mom and dad’s
• Visited with a few of my aunts and uncles, including dining at the casino near Redwood Falls - Jackpot

That’s all I can recall right now. As I mentioned before, I’m wiped. I may decide to take a break to get caught up on reading and e-mail, not to mention laundry and the proper storage of photos and old books I brought back and not be back until Monday. I also have plumbing and heating people coming this morning for the fall maintenance. A short break to recharge will also get me some time to sort through the photos I took (not too many, but some I think you’ll find of interest). Oh and some of the stuff I want to show you I had to ship back so it might not even arrive until Monday. I’m not sure, I haven’t checked the tracking number, but that would be my bet.

I’ll be trying to catch up slightly on blog reading today and probably napping, maybe going to the chiropractor depending upon when the P&H guys show up and maybe going to the pool to try relieve some of the pain and stiffness of traveling and sleeping in strange beds and such.

Fabric: Marble Silk Screen 100% Cotton from a store in MN last summer and Chartruese 100% Cotton from Fig Leaf here in town.
Pattern: Simplicity #4197, View C but in two-tone
Recipient: Me :-)
Cost: Not sure, but likely somewhere around $20 as well.

Notes: I wanted to cry when I first put the pieces together. I really thought the marble fabric would take center stage, but the vividness of the green kind of drowned it out even though there is technically more marble fabric in the skirt. I had been stashing this marble fabric for over a year, loving it so much I couldn’t get myself to cut it. Then when I realized I actually had enough of it to make a garment rather than use it for binding books or making a bag of some sort like I had intended when I bought it I jumped right in all excited. It took three days of hanging in a doorway waiting to be hemmed and it started to grow on me (DH too).

Now, I have a ton of brightly colored tees and long sleeve tees I thought I could wear with this skirt because all those colors are in the marble, but DH and SIL3 deemed none of them okay except this brown shirt. Fortunately I also have a similar brown sweater so I can transition this skirt further into fall. I found a pair of awesome boots at Target (but more chocolate colored) that looked amazing with the skirt, but I didn’t buy them. I just may though because they looked darn sexy with it! Tall boots with skirts would also allow me to wear them a little further into fall/winter. Can we tell I’m trying to justify them?? LOL!

It was lovely and we mostly enjoyed it as it will be much too long before the next one.
I got some knitting done and some more sewing. We did a lot of socializing with different groups. We even went to goth night at a local club, LOL! It had been much too long since I had been at a club. I felt completely out of place.

I’ll be leaving for Minnesota again tomorrow for a week. So I’ll probably get a post in tomorrow, but I’m leaving the lap top at home as the last trip was so much easier without the lap top in tow and since mom and dad don’t have high speed and their dial-up is unusually slow (even for dial-up) there isn’t much point. The coffeeshop I used to go to is closed so I don’t think there is wi-fi anywhere in Willmar anymore.

I hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend! I’ll do an FO Friday - The Wednesday Edition tomorrow. :-)

Fiber: Clearanced Linen at Jo-Ann Fabrics in Loveland
Pattern: Simplicity #4197, View E
Recipient: Me :-)
Cost: Less than $20, excluding the pattern

Notes: I *adore* this skirt! It was very simple to sew as well. The biggest trouble was the hem which wasn’t really trouble, just fiddly pressing for about 5 minutes of sewing. I was feeling like crap last night (pain levels) so left the hemming for this morning. I think that was a good plan though. It took about 45 minutes to hem the skirt, probably the longest step of the whole process.