Grandest of Openings

Last week was the grand opening of the new Pine Needles Quilt and Sew. It even has a new name.

It was quite the event and we were all there-lined up in front of the food.

Our leaders Marcia and Suzie

Connie T needs to be added in there too (in the purple shirt and black cardi in the group pictures)-she is fearless leader #3 and an all around go to girl (and the person who ALWAYS puts my name first on the retreat and SB mystery quilt lists-you know what I’m talkin’ about).

It was a wonderful opening-seemed like a long time in coming. There was a line to the door at 5 PM when the store opened, and I had a little PTSD flashback of the 70% sale. Oh God. Fortunately it was nothing like the 70% sale, and a good thing because I was not nearly medicated enough for that kind of thing.

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Fans and husbands sent flowers (not my husband but some husbands….)

Food was ready

 

And the new store was unveiled.

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On Friday my friend Mary K and I went to see Kaye England do her thing. It was entertaining and I learned sooo much.

Of course I couldn’t get a good picture of her, and I took a few. But I like this one with one of her quilts up behind her.

This is one of her embroidery designs. A little cow. I just can’t imagine why I was drawn to it. (RIP my little Twinkles…..)

The linky to her website is here-you should take a look.

I finished my Oh Delilah by SheKnits the day the shop opened. It’s for Marcia. I am working on matching footies. It’s very cozy.

My friend Jill came down on Saturday to the shop and we had dinner, which was highly pleasant after the busy week.

Sunday was a sunny funny day. I ran 10 miles. That was the funny part.

The cats partook of the sun.

……and dig the hillbilly’s trampoline. Doesn’t it just add to the ambiance?

Next weekend is more fiber-otherwise known as Yarnover. Sweeet!

Stay tuned-film at 11.

 

In search of Fiber

Last weekend, my friend Barb and I went in search of Fiber. We had a bead on the shop hop-

Why? Because it was there.

We made it to 5 shops (we veered to the North)

The Yarnery (one of my faves-and where I’ll be meeting Brenda Dayne in May)

Darn Knit Anyway-where I buy 3 Irish Girls (but I didn’t this time)

Part of the deal was the contributions to the food shelf, which we did with our Mac and Cheese offerings (Barb, modeling  the mac at Darn Knit)

Lila and Claudine’s, A Sheepy Yarn Shop,

and Steven B’s (always good for a little craziness, AND some delicious roving)

What better than a chandelier in the yarn shop?

Squee! I almost succumbed to some Signature needles-almost. (I was tempted twice-this was the first temptation)

It was an adventure-well worth the fun.

We grabbed a bite at the Finnish Bistro on Como

Seriously delicious. I mean, really. There’s also a Dunn Bros on site, just in case.

Then off to the Sale.

We met up with Celeste who was so kind as to put us up for the night.

Here’s the real line

Because we are serious about our fiber. And this is just the pre-sale.

I scored some fab wool fabrics, hand woven scarf, undyed wools, knit prints fabric, and a Barbara Walker cable book. Plus some mags. All in all, we had a great haul. Great

Here’s our junk-that would be my giant black bag in the front, with the roving hanging on for dear life. Celeste added to my fiber addiction with some colorful combed tops also. Se-weeeet.

Celeste’s house is a thing of wonder. There are so many different collectables it’s hard to know where to look. I took a few pictures of my favorites (in a non stalking, uncreepy sort of way someone who is staying over might photograph your house….)

 

Majacraft

And my favorite, the Mongolian man..

I don’t know what he is really, but I’d love to have one in my house. Scare the hell out of Trixie.

The next day, a day of lovely sunshine, we drove south on 35 west and, well, stopped at another yarn shop

Seriously, we couldn’t help ourselves. And I again, almost succumbed to the needles, but held back. Until next time.

Once home, we certainly got a kick out of the back of the car.

We were only gone a day. But we had fiber to last for months. Because you should always be prepared. For anything.

BTW-Opening of the new Pine Needles in Rochester tomorrow. Gads. Am off to Mentally Prepare. I won’t get caught off guard this time.

There’s Better Blogging in the Future

Really, there is. This week was very very slow. Except for this happening right outside our window.

I mean, who are those guys? When I first spotted them they were walking on their knees. Truly. It’s always a treat to see guerillas strolling along on their knees behind your office.

And then on Friday, at the spur of the moment, we did this-

Cathy and I decided to go to the Mall Of America. She had errands, I had Nordstrom notes and the rest is history. We stopped and had delicious sushi. And I mean delicious. It was the most fun I’ve had in a while, I must admit. It really perked up the week.

This weekend Barb and I are doing a repeat of last year known as the Textile Center Garage Sale. Here’s last year-

Waiting in line

 

The sale

It was cold, windy, and working on wet last year. This year I thought it might be warm and sunny, if 80 degrees in March is any indication. But alas, it has gotten cold again (I mean in the 40-50’s with lows in the upper 20-30’s, or more precisely, normal April weather which feels really cold after 80 degrees in March). So we may be a might chilly sitting in line. And wouldn’t ya know, the Minneapolis Yarn Shop Hop is also next Friday, coincidentally the day Barb and I will be travelling. How fortuitous. So, I suppose we have to leave early and go to some of the shops before the textile center. I am not sure how we will force ourselves-but we will. Somehow.

What was unfortuitous was the fact that I had to pay the IRS 800 bones and then had to put a water pump in my car for 300 more. Jeesh. (Really Toyota? 69000 and a new water pump? And what’s with the blank Zombie stares and one word answers from your front line service staff? The motto at Toyota? Do NOT engage. They could put the Kensington Palace guards to shame)

So to make myself feel better, yesterday I went to the Sprint store and bought this

That’ll teach Toyota and the IRS to mess with me. I have a bad feeling though that my brakes are making noise. And you know what that means?

Brake job=Mac Book. Yep, that oughta show ‘em who’s boss.

 

Mentally Unprepared

That I was, mentally unprepared, for the thing called Pine Needles last day in Racine. I’m sure I should have had some idea when I pulled up to the parking lot at 9:30 AM, a half hour before opening, and the place was packed. Word was they had started coming in at 8:30. You know it’s going to be a rough day when quilters are at the door an hour and a half before opening. They are almost as unpredictable as the knitters can be. Almost.

And I would have taken a picture of the crowd only I started cutting fabric at 10:07 and didn’t stop until 3:30, with about 10 minutes in-between.  So, at about 4:15 when the store finally closes and I’m standing there in a complete daze, unable to form a coherent thought, Marcia pipes up and says “Well, I never anticipated that”.

Really, Marcia? Seriously?

This was the end of the day

 

This is where I stood, that red table in the center,with customers holding bolts and bolts of fabric all around me. They snaked around to the shelves and all along the green back wall. Bless their patient little hearts for putting up with each other-and me. But I have to say, they were all so helpful and none of them said one word about my glazed expression after about 2:30 PM. They were trading up bolts and helping fold fabrics and all sorts of things. I think mostly it was to pass the time in the lines.

Did I mention everything in the store was 70% off?

Last week I forgot to show the full dumpster at the end of the first weekend of the sell down-

But after two more full to overflowing dumpsters they gave up and did this-

Those are the entire back walls. Full. That’s a lot of cardboard. There must be a use for it….somewhere.

Of course, there was more than me cutting. Suzie and Marcia manned the decks, and Connie and Cindy were up at the cash registers. Jeesh. I would have needed an ambulance escort if I’d been doing cash all day. Then they counted money. How’s that for bravery?

So, Pine Needles at Racine is closed, and a new Pine Needles is moving into Rochester. Squeee. I can not WAIT!

Sunday found me at another race, this week five miles at the Fools Five Road Race in Lewiston. This year there was a record number of people-3098.

It started out as a cool day, and I dressed the part. But when I got there-sun! So I was a little overdressed.

And there’s the start.

I left Dave with the camera which is always a mistake. Here’s just a smattering of what he did to occupy his 43 minutes of time.

He watched us take off down the street (see us waayyyy down there?)

He took several pictures of the helicopter, but only one of bird vs helicopter.

He tool a picture of these two and tried to convince me they beat me. (He does this every time but usually he picks someone older with crutches or a walker. These two look pretty good)

And the Heath boys (they did beat me-by a lot)

(I let them win)

And me-finishing

No really, I am moving. I really am. Actually, that little kid was an infant when I started up that hill…..

Afterwards, I met up with a couple of friends (and I saw quite a few friends before and during the race)

Not sure who that guy is trying to get in the picture behind us is, but it gives me a bit of a chuckle.

All in all, a pretty good weekend, a pretty good end of the week.

PS Errata from last week. That was not the Dark Knight-it was actually Flyman.

It’s my opinion that a superpower has some serious self esteem issues if he’s going to call himself Flyman