Monday, December 3, 2018

Another Finish and Another Parade!

Hi All,

Hoping you had a wonderful weekend.  Mine started off with a finish Friday night!!


My little brother's mitts are finished.  I love the way they turned out.  I'm also happy to be finished (for the time being) knitting with Lopi yarn.  I had no problems with it when making my Sigla sweater, but knitting the mitts was very hard on my hands/fingers.  The yarn was also very, very splitty.

So, Saturday Dee and I met up in Franconia at the Mennonite Heritage Center for their annual Christmas Market.  The barn (where we first went) was filled with produce of various kinds.  I ended up getting some scallions, kale, salad turnips and beautiful loin lamb chops.  The main building had a room set up with items for sale:  Moravian (I think) stars, beautiful wooden bowls, some woven items.  I managed to find a little stocking stuffer for Mailing.

The Center is very nice.  There are a number of rooms - there was an art show in one and historical items and info in another.  Hanging high on the walls are gorgeous woven coverlets.  One wall had a sampler and a wreath.  My pictures are not great due to the glare, but this sampler/linen towel was stitched in silk in 1833!


The wreath is made from hair!  I know that hair was often incorporated into samplers in memory of a loved one, but I had not seen a wreath previously:


That's a lot of hair!!

It did not take long to look at everything and then Dee and I were ready to head out for some coffee.  We went to Broad Street Grind in Souderton.  It took a little longer than expected to get there...we had to detour around a closed road because:  yup - another Christmas parade.  If you have not already, check out Dee's blog - she got some great pictures of the John Deere tractors in the parade as well as many fire engines.  Once again, our seats afforded us great views as the parade went right by the coffee shop.  We ended up having lunch there as well which was delicious!

I headed home mid-afternoon...had a short time at home and then Fletch and I took off for Colin & Mailing's for dinner.  Colin cooked a delicious birthday dinner for Mailing:  brisket and veggies and a carrot cake for dessert.  Everything was tasty and we had a great time. 

Now it's another work week.  Hopefully it won't drag out too much!

14 comments:

  1. Working with hair would be difficult a short it is so fine. I've never seen a hair wreath.

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  2. Hair. Oh, good golly. I thought I had seen it all but I won't be able to sleep tonight after seeing that.
    When the first Mister and I were married we lived in upstate New York in a creepy Gothic mansion that he was helping renovate that was full of weird Victorian death mementos like that. There were photos of the dead family in their coffins laying out in the parlor all over the place. I never slept a wink there that I didn't have nightmares. Those Victorian folks were pretty weird.

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  3. That is a lot of hair! I can’t even imagine. It’s kind of freaky isn’t it? I saw Dee’s post about the parade. You two do have luck with finding parades don’t you? It sounds like a wonderful time. Blessings, Betsy

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  4. Your mitts are just lovely!!! And a wreath made out of hair? wow

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  5. Those mitts turned out beautifully! and yum... brisket for a Mailing's birthday dinner with carrot cake - two absolute favorites of mine!!

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  6. Great finish on the mitts. They look great and that's lovely that you got to spend time with Dee in real life. :)

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  7. Those mitts look so nice and warm and I bet your brother will love them. Maybe next time you and Dee will get to be in the parade!

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  8. You two sure know how to have fun! I would have enjoyed that Heritage Center. I would have been intrigued by the wooden bowls. And the lunch with a view of the parade, what a score! ((hugs)), Teresa :-)

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  9. I can't imagine the effort and talent it takes to get the hair to stay in place. It's a little creepy and a little beautiful all at the same time.

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  10. Great finish on the mitts-very clever yarn work!
    I have seen small brooches but never a whole wreath made of hair-incredible labor! (Maybe done by the undertaker's wife who snitched a bit of hair or from a young woman who had to have all her hair cut because of illness and she didn't want to waste her tresses....)

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  11. Lovely mitts, and now you've earned your hiatus from the splitty yarn.

    I'm with Araignee--those Victorians and their Death Culture make quite the creepy combination. I'd need a parade after seeing that!

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  12. your brother is going to love it!! anything made with hair is a bit creepy to me :)

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