Knitting with Company

Festival and fun on the streets …

This is a dangerous week if you live in Geneva, Illinois and you try to exercise any sort of restraint with your dietary intake.

You see it’s Swedish Days – our annual “Midsommar Fest” – it runs from Tuesday through Sunday and culminates in the biggest small town parade you are likely to ever see with Shriners buzzing their lawnmower engined contraptions past your toes.

When Lesley and I first moved to the USA more than 20 years ago we stumbled upon Geneva while we were looking for somewhere to live in Chicagoland. The festival was underway when we visited and we were completely sold on the Fox Valley area in that one moment. We got lots of warm and fuzzies about what life could be like for our family in a community-driven town like Geneva. We were not wrong, Saint Charles, Batavia, Geneva and all the smaller surrounding towns have a wonderful charm.

Anyway, I digress, back to Swedish Days. Come down any day during the festival and you will find all sorts of activity going on.  There’s a craft show, there’s a carnival, there’s shopping with lots of bargains, there are kids’ activities like the “Creation Station”, there are Concerts on The Courthouse Lawn, every evening there are concerts on the central stage – bring a picnic and camp out on the courthouse lawn that gives a great view of the stage …  (You can get a full list of each days activities on the Geneva Chamber’s website).

and there are food booths up the wazoo …

Knights of Columbus, Lions Club, Viking Service Organization, the list goes on and on and they are serving all the traditional street delicacies.

Although I’m not a vegetarian, I do live in a vegetarian household and as I’m too lazy to keep the fridge stocked with meat, I don’t eat much of it … until Swedish days!  Every lunchtime I head out to grab the delicacy of the day – typically a bratwurst – in one bun or another.

Now you don’t need me to tell you, but this diet is extremely low fiber, and I’m a high fiber diet kinda guy.  So for breakfast I make sure I double up on my muesli … a little compound that I make myself from rolled oats and various dried fruits and nuts.  Delicious when mixed with yogurt and topped off with fresh fruit (blackberries and raspberries at this time of year).   You can’t beat high fiber foods. Added to that I spend most of my day surrounded by more natural fiber than anyone could ever digest – it just needs to be knitted or crocheted into something – of course you could knit it into a high fiber food.

Have I got the balance right?  Let me know.

Meanwhile it’s almost lunchtime and I’m planning my attack on the food booths … I hear the Methodist Church is serving up a particulary mean chicken sandwich this year (0% fiber – sigh!).

Sock Summit 2009

We will be attending the greatest sock show on earth in August, and we are excited to be making our first trip as a yarn store to somewhere west of the Rockies.

We’ll be loading up the trailer and we’ll be reproducing our “sock corner” in Portland for the duration of the summit … and you can be sure that we’ll also have lots of other goodies to keep knitters of all types excited.  That said the main focus of the Sock Summit is …. wait for it … Socks!

Why socks? Socks are practical, beautiful, interesting, historical, engaging and symbolic. Socks are circular, portable, structural and a perfect tiny canvas for almost any handknitting technique you’d like to put on them.   No matter what you’re interested in when it comes to knitting, there’s a way that has to do with socks.

We hope to see you at the sock summit.

The Granddaddy of Illinois festivals is here again!

Swedish Days celebrates its 60^th Anniversary with even more fun, great entertainment and shopping than ever before.  Need help planning your visit?  Check out  shopping and event highlights.  Read the entire schedule of events. You’ll find out all about keeping the kids occupied by checking out the Kids Activities Schedule.

If all else fails, just show up in comfortable shoes! We promise you won’t be bored. Our abundance of varied downtown merchants will be featuring some of their best sales of the year. Don’t forget to take a well deserved break by visiting the many food tents or wonderful Geneva restaurants, too!

Visit www.genevachamber.com or call 630-232-6060 for more information.

Those of you who are local know that next week is The Granddaddy of Festivals – Swedish Days in Geneva. It is really a huge festival and celebrates the town’s Swedish Heritage in a big way. Because staycations are the order of the day right now, it is a lovely time to come and spend with your family and friends, enjoying great bargains, good food, crafts, carnivals and all kinds of other activities. Don’t miss it.

Before the madness begins come in this weekend. On Saturday and Sunday we are having a Pre-Swede Sale … all books will be 20% off, all Gedifra and Katia yarns are 30% off, all bags are 10% off and everything in the ‘Chicken Wire’ is Buy One Get One free.

Plus you can have first dibs on the Swedish Days Model Sale … come and nab some great bargains on finished goods that we can no longer use in the store ‘cos we are out of the yarn. These deals are only available from 10:00am on Saturday until 4:00pm on Sunday.

Two chances to win a $10 Gift Card to Wool and Company.

Our friend and customer Teresa came by with a challenge – what the heck was the pattern?  You see she started this about 3 years ago, put it down and when she came to pick it back up she couldn’t find the pattern.  We searched our records to see if we could come up with an answer, but zilch!  Here are a few clues:

• It’s a child size
• It’s knit with worsted weight (in this case Knit One Crochet Too’s Parfait)
• It’s currently on US6 needles.

Take your best shot with a comment below and we’ll give a $10 Wool and Company Gift Card to the first person who correctly identifies it.  Terry is the judge on this as she knows she’ll recognize it once someone comes up with the designer/pattern.

We’ll award a second $10 Gift Card to the person who comes up with the funnest idea for the future this garment – whether or not  the pattern is identified.

Cashmere Being Auctioned

Red Charcoal Black

Cashmere – the fine, soft wool or down hair from the undercoat of the Kashmir goat.  Each goat produces abut 4 ounces of this valuable fiber each year – this makes it one of the most expensive and most sought after fibers in the world (after qiviuk which we stock in our store). We’re currently auctioning 2 goats-worth of the collectible Jaeger Cashmere, which is 90% cashmere and 10% polyamide (gives it extra durability).

An exquisite yarn that is perfect for accessories like scarves and gloves.

Make your bid at the right.

Some fun new books have just arrived …  how about Pints and Purls, Portable Projects for the Social Knitter – a book with patterns that are “Drink Rated” from those that require a minimum level of concentration and skill (4 drinks allowed) to those that require no distractions!

Other goodies include:

1. Vintage Baby Knits by Kristen Rengren
2. Freeform Style by Jonelle Raffino and Prudence Mapstone
3. The Knitchick’s Guide to Sweaters, Classic Styles for the Modern Knitter
4. Feminine Knits Lene Holme Samsoe