State Fair Saturday

From our Swedish Lutheran cups of coffee to yours! We started our second visit to the Minnesota State Fair with a breakfast visit to the Salem Lutheran Church Breakfast Hall. Yum - that Swedish Coffee can't be beat - and their whole wheat toast is pretty good too.



No trip to the state fair is complete with a fling on the Giant Slide. Oddly enough, no one besides Youngest Child wanted to ride this year.



This hat, glove and scarf set was adorable and truly deserved its award. I don't know who gives out the Daisy Knits award but I agree!



There appeared to be an alarming trend of kids climbing on their mothers over in the Dairy Barn!



I always buy something yarn or fiber related at the fair. This year I bought a jar of hand creme at the Shepherd's Choice booth and this lovely Icelandic Sheep roving over at the Minnesota Lamb and Wool producers booth. Beautiful stuff - I think it's from Misty Meadows Icelandics.



I also love it when Mr. Daisy cleans out his drawers. I'd been trying to get him to wear slightly more attractive socks and he helpfully pulled out seven pairs of gym socks. Perfectly good ones that I would not feel bad about giving away to charity.

No visit to the state fair would also be complete without a recounting of the fair foods eaten:

After a traditional eggs and toast breakfast over at Salem Lutheran, I split a Scotch Egg with Youngest Daughter. That's a hard boiled egg wrapped in spicy sausage, dipped in breading a fried. It was a little dry but otherwise tasty. Definitely what's known as "protein rich" food.

Mr. Daisy and I shared a bag of spicy, sugary roasted almonds from the European Roasted Nuts booth (otherwise known as Kleines Bayern Roasted Nuts) - a yearly treat for us.

I also had a new taste treat - the Texas Tater Twister. This is a spiral cut potato wrapped around ( they claim) a course ground sausage. I'm thinking mine was a hot dog. It was good but very, very hot. The spiral cut Lemon-Pepper flavored potato alone was much better. I drank water but the rest of the family enjoyed Fresh Squeezed Lemonades.

Now, we're at home and it's time to think about dinner. Plain, simple tomato sandwiches!

Remember, there are two whole more days to go and try things out for yourself at the Minnesota State Fair!

Friday highlights from the fair

We had so much fun that we are going back tomorrow! Although, I'm hoping to see more than the Poultry Barn this time . . .

A few quick highlights . . .




this beauty would fit right in at the November Minnesota Knitters' Guild meeting. Our theme that month is "Norwegian Knitting."



This cute child's hat makes me want to start knitting hats again. Darling!



This chicken (a rooster, I believe!) was mesmerized by the shiny chain on my camera. He got closer and closer and seemed determined to stare me down. He finally made a grab for it as I walked away.

The chain did nothing for



the champion gander and goose. They were very blase about the whole thing.


In honor of the Minnesota State Fair, I give you:

Everything on a stick - courtesy of YouTube.



Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Pay no attention to the corn dog behind the curtain . . .

Sure, I'd like to say that I made good food choices at the State Fair but . . . I'd be lying. Yep, we had trips to the malted booth, the Pronto Pups, the mini-doughnuts and the free Cheetos. And chinese food. But we did walk all over the grounds (no one would let me visit the Sheep booth!) and had a lovely time so maybe, they actually balanced each other out. Right . . .



We also stopped by to visit my green Kiri shawl at the Textile Center display. No, I didn't enter it in the Fair (I knitted it for the Knitting Olympics and it had a few mistakes!) but I love it and they needed items from the Mn. Knitters' Guild for the display. Stop by and wave at it! GFMelissa has a cute little felted hat (with needle felted flowers) on display as well. Later on, I stopped by the Minnesota Lamb and Wool Producers booth for some great Rosemary soap and a yarn-decorated bowl from Jennie the Potter. I hesitated over the yarn for quite some time but I'm still spinning quite a bit and until I make something with it, I'm feeling a little guilty.



Obviously, I didn't feel guilty enough. On Friday, I read on the TC Knit Yahoo list that Creative Fibers in Minneapolis was going to be closing at the end of September. Everything is currently 25% off. That is the store where I took my first spinning class and I feel so sad. Someone - buy that store!

So GFM and I bundled up all the kids and drove over to check things out. I bought another skein of All Things Heather sock yarn in Mustard Yellow and some Mohair/Wool spinning fiber. I was hoping to score some more Red Star Rovings but it was all gone. So, I really used up my State Fair self-allocated yarn allowance before I got there.




This week's Saturday Seven went right to someone who could use them. Someone posted a "Wanted" request for cloth diapers on Freecycle this week and I was able to give them the end of my diaper stash - nine diapers and four covers. Yes, we used cloth diapers until they wouldn't stay on Youngest Child's bottom any more. Then, we moved into disposables and training pants. Not me, personally, I've been trained for years! The Royal/Group "We." So, I bundled them up for the recipient and they were picked up yesterday. I could have kept them for cleaning cloths but they were really nice diapers!