Friends, Food and Fiber

After we decided we'd rather drive back roads than freeways we've driven the same route to the Chicago area at least 4 times. By now our route is determined  by special places we like to return to each visit.

Our first stop is for lunch in Decorah, Iowa. On a visit to the Vesterheim Museum ( a must see ) we discovered this restaurant and this menu. So we stop there every time and I get the same thing. 

Decorah is a Norwegian oriented town, so of course, they have Norwegian meatballs and real mashed potatoes. These are the best!

This is a Norwegian dessert which my family never served but I tasted for the first time on my trip to Norway. This is roomugrut (or some similar spelling) made from heavy cream and is like a custard or flan. The black on the top is cinnamon, not something burned.

In Decorah we met a nursing classmate of mine and had lunch together.

Our trip from Decorah to Schaumberg was plagued with road construction and in one place the traffic was completely stopped and there was no oncoming traffic. We waited for awhile and my husband got out the map and figured out a way we could get around the blockage. Good idea? No! Illinois is terrible about numbering their roads. The map had numbers, but the roads just had one name no matter which way we turned. We finally found a decent looking road which should have gotten us around the blockage and back on the road we wanted. 70 miles later we arrived back at Galena, the town BEFORE the blockage, so we back tracked and went another way. It was a long day,

My husband grew up in Chicago so we visit with some of his high school friends. This is the restaurant we went to with one friend. It is called Mill Rose a vision of William R. Rose, owner of Rose Packing Company, a meat processing firm located in Chicago Barrington, Illinois.

Six 125 year old large barns have been moved to create the restaurant, banquet rooms and Millrose Country Store.

The brick in the patio is from the original meat processing plant.

The Midwest is having a severe drought and heat. We expected to see damaged fields but surprisingly we saw only a few cornfields with wilted, stunted corn. We could see some of the trees were showing damage.

The next day while my husband visited another friend I went to XRX, publisher of Knitters' magazine Midwest conference market. It is huge, filled with anything you might want in the knitting world. It is overwhelming! This is showing the number of isles, plus two behind me.

This is a picture of the length of each isle, but it really doesn't show clearly.

And this is what I bought. From top to bottom: 1) 75% tencel/25% linen 2) Rayon. Both of these are from a company called Newton's Yarn Company in Anaheim, CA. I had lunch with a woman from the company who was wearing a shawl out of the rayon which was beautiful and she said after the first blocking didn't need to be blocked again. 3) Miss Babs fingering yarn, 70% merino, 30% silk.

4) Serenity Silk +, 75% merino/ 15% cashmere/ 10% silk. 5) Serenity Lace, 90% merino/ 10% cashmere. Both numbers 4 and 5 are Zen Garden and because I bought 2 skeins, I got the pattern in the background as a gift. 6) The light blue is sweet georgia, 45% cashmere, 55% silk, lace weight. 6 & 8) are both Madelinetosh fingering weight. The gold is a limited edition colorway, Stephen Loves Tosh and it just fell off the shelf as I was waiting in line to pay for the needles I started out to buy. The needles are Knitters Pride Cubix which I have tried and liked. I also got a fixed circular Knitters Pride-not cubix- because the circular needle I was knitting socks on had a barb at the join and was splitting the yarn as I had to force it over the join. A good shopping trip. I actually left before the time my husband was picking me up because I knew I'd just buy more and I didn't need this, let alone more.

On the way home we get orders from our children to stop at the Brewery in New Glarus, WI to get them beer. We like their beer and you cannot buy it outside the state of Wisconsin. I was introduced to it by a friend from Texas who came to knitting camp in Door County every year and brought the beer back to her family.

This is what we went home with. A case for each child and the 6 pack is mine.

Also in New Glarus is the Swiss hotel which has a good restaurant featuring Swiss food we usually eat at, but neither one of us was hungry so we just took a picture.

Across the street from the hotel is this gift shop where I drop a lot of money every time I go inside.

Because this is part if the Polish pottery I just love. Every time I go I buy a few pieces.

This is my purchase this time.

We're nearing home, and this is another routine stop. Again, the Norwegian influence. There is not anything on the menu we get every time, but we plan our meal to leave room for their wonderful pies. We like their cookies and usually bring some home. This year we did, but not for us. We gave them to the staff at the MN Oncology Office where my husband receives his chemo.

Have to close with this sign which we say MANY times. I didn't get the one that says, "Detour". One of those gave us another extra 20 miles on the way home.

Stretchy Circular Needles

I love to try new things and new gadgets. An ad in a knitting magazine caught my eye for circular needles that stretch. I thought maybe this was the solution for avoiding knitting socks on double pointed needles (which I don't mind) or 2 circular needles (which I hate). The only size I could see that the needles come in is size 2 or 2.75 mm. The length recommended for socks is the 10 inch length, but they do come in other lengths all the way up to 52 inches. My question is, if they stretch, why do you need 52 inches. Anyway, I've knit only 1 inch on a sock ribbing and do not know if these are any different from the old 10 inch circulars which caused pain in the hands because of the short shanks on the needles and the small circumferance of the circle. These might be better because your hands in the center of the circle seem to stretch the cords a little bit as you work to make a larger circumference.

This shows how the cable stretches-sort of.

I still haven't made up my mind if they are keepers or if I go back to the dpns. Look them up at www.stretchycirculars.com

PS. They will be put in the box with other curiosity notions and I'll go back to my double point needles. I got pain in my hands so had to go back to wearing my braces at night for a couple nights.