Minnesota Yarn Shop Hop Finale

As someone who worked in a LYS for the majority of the hop, I’m happy to have met so many great people during the event. It is always fun to chat with other knitters – and my favorite part is helping someone find just the right yarn for just the right project. I joke that helping others find projects is what keeps me from having to make them all myself! ha ha

I also enjoy hearing about what people like from exploring other stores, yarns, etc. People would come through Yarn Garage and bubble with stories from other stores, which is great to hear, too. And fortunately, no one seemed terribly put off by the rather unfriendly weather we had for this year’s Hop.

While I do not know any specific numbers, I know our store gathered a good number of donations for the local food shelf, had a lot of foot traffic, and loved sharing our love of fiber with fellow enthusiasts. Like many Hoppers, I’m tired but happy.

So, did you go? What did you get? What was the best part? What was your favorite discovery? And do you have any suggestions for future Hops?

Minnesota Yarn Shop Hop, Day 1

Despite some distasteful “mid-winter” weather in April, many knitters made it out to Yarn Garage Thursday to kick off the Yarn Shop Hop with a bang! Traffic was steady, despite Mother Nature throwing just about everything she had at us. Each of the sixteen participating stores has brought in an exclusive hand-dye for the event. Pictured below is some scrumptious Freia Fine Handpaints in two unique colorways created just for us: Loring Park (blues) and Powderhorn (green/purple). During the Hop, a free pattern is available designed specifically to use the featured yarn. This year’s pattern is for a great dropped-stitch, cabled cowl (also pictured).

Three more days to check out the sixteen participating shops – don’t miss out!

Don’t miss the Yarn Shop Hop!

It is THAT time of year again! This will be the seventh annual Yarn Shop Hop in the Twin Cities area. Each year, we see more participation from both customers and yarn shops. This year, there will be a total of sixteen shops, several participating for the first time. The fun begins Thursday, April 11 and continues through Sunday, April 14. Don’t miss out!

Why participate in the Yarn Shop Hop?

• Each shop will have special, exclusive yarn brought in just for Shop Hop.
• A free pattern is being offered by each shop designed to compliment their exclusive Shop Hop yarn.
• Prizes! There will be a first prize offered by each store as well as one Grand Prize drawn from all participants. The Grand Prize is worth over $2000!!
• Do good and collect unique charms – for each store that you make a $5 donation of cash or non-perishable goods, you will receive that store’s unique charm on this year’s theme: “I Yarn @ …” (outdoors, yarn store, etc). These charms are often worked into the free patterns designed to compliment the special Shop Hop yarns.
• It is just plain fun! Explore new shops, tour around with friends or make new friends as you visit the stores. Plus, there’s YARN! 🙂

Yes, you can shop anytime, but you would miss out on many of these once-a-year opportunities. Find out more a Minnesota Yarn Shop Hop. I will be at Yarn Garage in Rosemount for three of the four days of the Hop (working, not shopping… well, mostly).

Drive safely – who expected we would be measuring snow in inches at this time of year!

Good Food

We all need to eat, if only to fuel our ability to knit, right? This is the first non-knitting post on this blog – although it highlights restaurants we stopped at while on our September trip to Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival. We had the good fortune to stop at three quite excellent restaurants. If you are in their area sometime, I’d definitely recommend stopping by!

Norske Nook – 4 locations in Wisconsin
A Scandinavian-themed restaurant with a vast array of pies. This has been a regular stop for us in Osseo, WI, on our trips between Minneapolis/St Paul and Madison. We knew they had other locations as well so this trip, we stopped at their Eau Claire, WI, location which includes Northwoods Brew Pub. Now, we were there at breakfast time, so I have no idea on the quality of the brews. However, they make excellent food and excellent pies, so logic would follow that the brews would be at least worth tasting. For food, I had this scrumptious Stuffed Cranberry Wild Rice French Toast with lingonberry sauce. It is a house specialty and was just perfect! We were too stuffed for pie, so we got two slices for the road. In addition to Osseo and Eau Claire, there are Norske Nooks in Rice Lake and Hayward, WI, as well.

Upper Krust – Watertown, WI
Went to this restaurant to experience their Sunday buffet. Great variety, great quality, prompt & attentive service. Our little group tried just about everything offered and the only thing that was just average was the applesauce, which I doubt they made themselves. Everything else was excellent. Of course, I was particularly partial to the Raspberry Stuffed French Toast (apparently, I was on a stuffed french toast kick that weekend). This is another restaurant that offers a variety of homemade pies. Several varieties were available on the buffet in ‘sampler’ sizes. My favorite was the Tollhouse, which was like a big, mostly cooked but still gooey cookie. Others in the group were impressed with their Cherry pie, which is made with sour cherries and not too much sugar so they are still tart.

The Smokin’ Oak – Red Wing, MN
As you approach this restaurant, you smell the aroma from the wood-fired rotisserie and the yummy things they cook on it. As you may have guessed, rotisserie-grilled meats are the speciality here. The smell made us extra hungry, so we started with the Fully Loaded Potato Skins. These are topped with the usual things and then they add your choice of pulled chicken, pork or beef brisket and BBQ sauce! We had a combo, so got to try each of the rotisserie meats. They were delicious! Who knew that what potato skins really needed was more meat and some BBQ sauce? For a main course, we each had a salad. Really – we went to a rotisserie place and had salads. One of us had the Rotisserie Chicken Salad and the other had the Grilled Steak Salad. Both came with a very generous portion of meat – more than we had seen recently on a steak sandwich even! We had leftovers so I have no idea if this place even serves pie. This was our first visit, but it definitely will not be our last.