Radio Silence

It's been a busy two weeks since my last post. My boss has come back from leave, so I've been working extra hours to get her caught up and reintegrated into the job. It's great to have her back and I'm remembering how much I love working with her. It's going to make it even harder to leave.

Last weekend my parents and in-laws both came out for my beloved's graduation:


He's officially a math doctor! (As soon as he finishes his thesis later this summer!)

Jorah's folks went up north with some friends for the rest of the weekend and we hung out with mine on Saturday. We did the Farmers' Market and State Street and had a great time. All of the parents loved the new babies.


Another busy week passed and then last Saturday we drove down to Decorah, Iowa and met Jorah's parents for wonderful day visiting The Vesterhiem - a museum about Norweigian immigration to the States.


Jorah has Viking blood on his mother's side and they had been wanting to visit for a while. There were six of us there and three of us are past or current National Parks people, so we love our museums and guided tours. It was a great day.

This is Jorah at lunch, where we all tried the Lefse Special (awesome).


Doesn't he look super Norwiegian? Look at that Dale of Norway sweater! (We found it secondhand in La Bella Vita, a wonderful little yarn/vintage shop in Mineral Point, WI.)

I first read about the museum in this knitting book, which I bought with my Christmas money. I don't love the projects, although there is some good stuff there, but the history and the pictures of the museum made me crazy with geeker joy. It was a wonderful museum and I really recommend it if you have even a passing interest in the 19th century, Norwegians, immigration, textiles, or prairie living.


We also visited Blue Heron Knittery, where I was seduced by the beautiful knitting kits and allowed myself to be talked into a book I've had my eye on for a while . . . and some real Norwegian yarn to go with! As you can imagine, it was very hard to convince me that I needed more books and yarn.


I'm excited to make these mittens - a year and a half ago when I was all crazy about Latvian Mittens I didn't know how to knit colorwork with two hands OR magic loop! I can't wait to go to town on them.

In the meantime I'm all over the May classes for the HPKCHC. I don't have photos of any of the rest of my homework, but here are my SPEW (Skew) socks:


I am up to the cuffs and expect to finish tonight. Then I just have to find someone with small enough feet to model them for you! They came out bigger than the pattern (which was my intention - I have Sasquatch feet, even if they are beautifully shaped) but still too small for me. I think they are going to be winging their way south to sunny Florida to live with a dear friend who has much more ladylike feet than I do. Don't let the ridiculously bad photo fool you - they are beautiful in person!

Tomorrow I'm hoping to knit with the other HPKCHCers in the area at the Union Terrace. They are way farther along this semester than I am, so hopefully they can light a fire under me so I finish up in time. I haven't even written up an OWL proposal yet!