The day after

Well we’ve made it through another Christmas. It was a great two day bonanza of family and food. I have a hard time admitting defeat with hand made gifts and I must say this year I took it in stride. There were three projects that did not get finished in time – guess what the intended recipients still like me and the world is still spinning! Amazing. I will of course attempt to finish these in a timely manner and send them off to their proper homes.
The weeks leading up to Christmas were filled with lots of excitement. Our holiday sales were wonderful and many of our favorite people stopped by. The front rooms of our home are converted to a gallery for two weeks while we host the event. Our animals find this cramps their style a bit – they still manage to make it work. Abbey refuses to give up her favorite window. Amazingly there has never been a pet related breakage.
In addition to our home sale I also participated in other holiday sales.

My favorite was Kathy’s sale at her farm in East Bethel. This year she renovated her barn creating a cozy wonderful yarn shop to feature her handmade soaps, lotions, and of course yarn. There were other vendors including Winnie and Russ from Hillside Honey who had fresh honey, beeswax candles, beautiful woodwork and hand spun and knit shawls. Elisabeth was spinning lace weight yarn, the kind that makes me drool, all day. Shepherd’s Way Farms‘ Jodi was also in attendance bringing wonderful artisan cheese. YUM! Lynn and Nancy, buddies from Knit Camp, were there too showing off their latest creations. Lots of familiar faces came and a little knitting was done. It was a wonderful day. If only there were snow . . .
I also completed a commission for A Sheepy Yarn Shoppe in White Bear Lake. The owner approached me at Minnesota Knitter’s Guild Yarnover event last spring and was patient enough to wait for my summer show schedule to wind down before I bean work on her custom mugs. The pieces I made for her shop feature their knitting sheep logo. I’m quite pleased with them and judging by the response so far so are the knitters that frequent the shop! I am so impressed with the selection of yarns they stock and the owner was a dream to work with!
My dear Annie also put a wonderful plug for me on her blog. How did I get so lucky?