Wouldn't this be great?

I found this long display counter while antiquing with my mom. Can't you just picture it with fabrics stashed on one side, yarn on the other, that nice long cutting surface, and room to layout and design... It's really long. Like maybe twenty feet or more. Eventually, I hope to finish my very pointy attic and move my craft explosions up there. I don't think this will fit through that tiny attic door so I guess I will have to build my own.

Sigh!

Ten Things You Might Already Know About Me

My first name comes from a doll in a Beatrix Potter story, "The Tale of Two Bad Mice."

I began ballet lessons as an adult. I had foot surgery and needed to strengthen my foot and keep it flexible. It kept the rest of me strong and flexible too. I was the only one in class with discernable breasts and hips. The others all lived on bullion and hot tea. How sad!

I am an avid herb gardener. I'm good with fruit trees too. For some reason, vegetables scare me a little. I'm growing them anyway.

My first job, with a paycheck, was School Crossing Guard. It paid a dollar a day. Doing this job, on the windswept prairie, was pure misery in the winter. I never complained or quit. I bought savings bonds with my money and vowed never to allow myself to be that cold again.

I have always gotten along well with my parents, even as a teenager.

I learned American Sign Language as a child. I wouldn't say I'm all that fluent at this point because I have no one with whom I can converse. The little town I grew up in was very near a state school for the deaf and when I was very young, several of the school's students lived in that town. We played together in the summer. I, and other "hearing" children who attended the public school, drove our teachers crazy by signing to one another during class and study halls. They couldn't really punish us for talking, so they would move us so that we were no longer facing one another. All this came to a halt when Mrs Grell, our sixth grade teacher, moved to town. She was a hearing person raised by deaf parents. She not only understood our signing, she read lips too. Ouch!

When I write in my journal, I start in the back and end in the front. I have no idea why. Moleskine Cahier Notebooks are my favorite. When I was in elementary school, I stitched my own journals from scrap paper.

I work in the "carriage trade".

I learned to knit and hand sew before the age of three. I won't say I was immediately good at either of them.

I look like my paternal grandmother when she was younger.

Mitten Maven

For some time now, I have been marveling over the work of Leena at Riihivilla.

Leena and her husband live in Finland. Leena has been dyeing Finnsheep wool for more than 20 years, gathering and fermenting her own dyestuffs, and, together with her mother, creating awesome Mitten Kits. The kits are inspired, in both colorways and design, by the breathtaking Finnish countryside.


Leena and her husband sell their yarns at the Market Place Kauppatori, in Helsinki, but fortunately for us, they are also available online.

If you have a knitter on your list, or you are looking for a chilly weather project with sumptuous color, may I suggest you pour yourself a cup of tea, explore Leena's blog, and then check out her shop? Do remember that the kits and patterns are for personal use only.


If only I could make up my mind which kit to hint for this Christmas.......! I think the one pictured above might be my favorite.