a guy, his ox, and a bed
Many people are familiar with the Paul Bunyan legend. As a Minnesota native, it has been one of my favorites.
In this picture above, I love the view of Lake Bemidji beyond. Most postcards for these statues avoid the lake view and use the trees to reinforce the lumberjack in the woods theme. Also, I wonder how much yarn we would need to knit sweaters for Paul and Babe.
I have an exclusive, never-seen-before picture of Paul Bunyan’s bed for you all. Yes, really!
general | 13 stitchesJurassic Cities
Local residents and visitors will no doubt have noticed strange sights here in the Cities this summer. How did dinosaurs, long since extinct, come to be parading the streets of St. Paul and Minneapolis?
The answer: Diggin’ Dinos was created to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Science Museum of Minnesota! 60 dinosaur statues were decorated and then displayed all summer long. After Labor Day, they will be auctioned.
I was able to capture a few on camera, mostly at the State Fair. You’ll notice signs on some of them, usually with “No climbing, or my mom’ll stop on you.” Heh.
Click any thumbnail below to embiggen or for a manual slideshow. Or, if you like, a complete list is available at the Diggin’ Dinos website. Have fun! : )
If I were a book…
ETA: Schrodinger (yes, the one I test-knit the Twisted Tweed socks for) is running a contest in preview of her new Etsy shop. Go over there right now and leave a comment for a chance to win a cool cube-shaped sock bag!
What? What? There was a miniseries? How did I miss this? Oh yeah… I was buried under a ton of books in grad school. Time to update my Netflix queue! : ) Cute quiz, even if I’m not Camelot-obsessed. (Quiz via Kimbooktu.)
books, know thyself | 11 stitchesMini-Surprise
I’m still behind with posts, so many pictures to sort through and and posts to proofread.
Meanwhile, I was finally able to merge my old Wordpress feed with FeedBurner. I had signed up for FB ages ago, but couldn’t find an easy solution at the time. ESCknits at Ravelry clued me in to FeedSmith. This plugin made the transition so much easier. Now that my feeds are going through FB, the formatting should look much nicer now.
Since I was so happy with the feed improvements, I decided to change my blog template. It has a bit more white than I’d like, but is very clean and readable. I’m kind of picky about my templates… too many files or too many graphics can require more work to customize than I’m willing or have time to apply. This one is well designed and was easy to tweak here and there. The green color in the header navigation bar and the comment background is still a bit off. I always have trouble viewing light green colors on a LED monitor. I’m satisfied with it for now but don’t be surprised if it changes. Do let me know if anything looks wonky, thanks!
general, site updates | 7 stitchesArtWalk
During my family’s recent trip up north, I was able to view new installations in the Bemidji Sculpture Walk.
general | 12 stitchesSpiralling Surprise
I haven’t been a good blogger/commentator lately; I really appreciate all your comments on my recent posts. I haven’t had time to write up any posts for a while because Grandma was here visiting. Less computer time also means more knitting!
Quick Ravelry aside: Casey has just added an “image slurper” which is being tested now by some users. It takes the URL of a picture and resizes/crops it for use on Ravelry; the pictures show up with a ©[User] caption. I’m so excited for this option because I generally host my pictures here instead of Flickr or Picasa. Ravelry is also getting new servers this week; after the switch (and related testing), they plan to speed up the invites. Good news for those still on the waiting list!
I didn’t even blog about these socks when they were wee socks in progress because they went so quickly!
knitting, socks | 11 stitchesOceans of Tweed
Schrödinger has posted her sock pattern! She provides both cuff-down and toe-up instructions. I think it’s a really nice unisex pattern that works well with tonal or subtly variegated yarns. Her socks are knit in a great Trekking XXL colorway.
knitting, socks | 17 stitches3 things
- It’s so sad, shocking, and awful about the bridge collapse. Yes, I’m OK. Fortunately no one in my family was anywhere close. I used to live on the West Bank, right in this area; I can’t imagine how stressful it must be over there now.
- In case you missed the news, MezzoDiva is fundraising for her participation in the 2007 Weekend to End Breast Cancer. If you contribute, you will get a copy of her sock pattern Campanula for the Cure! All the details and donation instructions are available in this post. She has also recently started a KAL blog for anyone planning to knit the pattern. It’s a very pretty pattern; I haven’t quite decided what yarn I’ll use. Possibly the recent Rockin’ Sock Club colorway, Firebird? Or maybe I’ll wait to see what arrives this month?
- Did you know Tuesday Morning currently sells yarn? And not just the eyelash/novelty variety. I had no idea. Mom happened to stop in there yesterday and bought a few skeins for me. She reports that the shelves were pretty messy and picked over (typical of the store), but that there were also some very nice yarns priced at 50% off retail.
All Hail Caesar!
The mosaic socks for my Sockapalooooza pal are finished! I’m ever so pleased with how these turned out.
knitting, secret pals or swaps, socks | 25 stitches
