Fiber Foray From Fargo

Today I was in Fargo and among other things I of course went to the local yarn stores.
The newest addition to Fargo is Boucle' which opened just a few weeks ago in Fargo's thriving Downtown. Seriously there was a men's clothing store that I would have shopped in.
It was pleasantly trendy with a great selection
and the requisite lime green furnishings and IKEA shelving.
On the outskirts of town Parie Yarns was just setting up shop and had alot of the typical workhorse Cascades and Lamb's Pride. I wasn't impressed.
I was impressed by the Nordic Needle which is the single most comprehensive embroidery store I have ever seen. Unfortunately I left my purchases from here in Fargo. The Nordic Needle has somewhat legendary status amongst embroidery people having been in business since the mid 70's. I'm going to stitch a nice little Llemko rushniky.

Fargo was surprisingly pleasant and rather interesting.

~Eikon

Danica Nearing Completion

I have maybe 8 inches left on the Danica Scarf which will put the final length at about 70 inches.
I am really enjoying knitting this scarf and was thinking about giving it to Cicada but am leaning more towards giving it to Niko for Christmas and knitting another one in orange and red for Cicada.

Maybe I'll be able to get it done bye the end of the weekend but I have a pretty detailed lesson plan to do Sunday afternoon so probably blocking will commence on Monday or Tuesday.

~Eikon

Friends Don't Let Friends Drink and Make Pysanky

I was really bored tonight and after getting some Sam Adams Winter Ale (they make my second favourite American lagers). I dug out my pysanky stuff and decided to make a simple egg.
Only by then I had had a few beers and lost track of what I was doing.
So thick lines...
Led to medium lines....Which in turn Led to Fine lines.

So two hours later I tossed my happy little brown organic egg into the dye.

I turned out ok considering my questionable hand eye coordination after a questionable number of drinks.
Bottom.
Back.
Front.

I do love making pysanky and really appreciate how the natural brown is accented by almost any color. I'll probably do a class in Minneapolis this spring for friends there on how to make them.


~Eikon

Wind Dried Puffin

Peat brought this commercial to my attention and my inner cultural historian was struck by the wind dried puffin. Peat assured me it was an actual phenomenon in the Faroes and Iceland.

Apparently there is so much salt in the air in these places that you can hang things up outside and they don't rot they just dry. Common things like fish or puffin were just put out on the line but for hard to come by beef and mutton a outhouse was built with holes large enough to let the wind in but keep out pilfering sea birds.
It seems the Chinese are also fond of this technique.
Now if only I had an ocean and some puffins .....

~Eikon

Dead Pheasant

The upstairs neighbor had his tail gate open so when we came back from All Saints I had to walk around and then noticed why the gate was open.
Somehow you'd think leaving a pheasant out in the open would be a bad thing.
Eli was happy for the excuse to chase his glow ball.

I'm going to Fargo on Saturday it should be a good time. Fargo's excitin dontchya kno.

~Eikon

Meatballs

My usual method of learning a recipe is by teaching it to myself by trial and error. If I had someone to show me this would be a lot easier. I'm looking forward to cooking with Peat and picking up a few recipes.

Today I tried meatballs for a second time and I think it was an improvement on the last time.
They still cooked for longer than they should and I think I'll try 50 minutes instead of an hour next time. I made a nice puttanesca for dinner and the rest are freezing for future use. I like to toss one or two in my miso soup.
Here's a random photo of Eli sprawled out on the floor. Wednesday I start one of my student teaching experiences and am looking forward to it.

~Eikon

Something Positive

I Love the reference to a metric ton of fan fiction and Choo Choo Bear's ( the cat) frantic note.

~Eikon