Confessions of a Wooloholic: Oh, fun!

Once again I've fallen off the blog wagon. This time it's not really due to a lack of things to write about, but rather too much. A lot has happened since my last post, I just haven't had the time/energy to try to write about all of it! I didn't even check when my last post was. I don't really want to know.

The Enabler and I took a little trip down to Minneapolis for a concert on the summer solstice… which doesn't seem like that long ago but I guess it's like three weeks ago already (whaaaat).

Upon our arrival with all of our luggage in downtown Minneapolis, we happened to share an elevator with a couple of local women. The subsequent conversation was roughly as follows:

Woman 1: It looks like you're visiting from out of town. Where are you from?
Us: Yeah, we're from Winnipeg.
Woman 1: Oh, fun!
Woman 2 (not hearing properly): Where did you say you were from?
Us: Winnipeg.
Woman 2: Oh, fun!

I'm not sure why, but it struck me as very funny that these two women had the exact same response to finding out where we were from. It could very well have been genuine, but it could also be one of those polite responses that one gives when one doesn't know what else to say. Regardless, I do think Winnipeg is fun… But I'm not going to lie, so is Minneapolis. It's one of my favourite American cities that I have visited, and I plan to visit many more times.

We drove down specifically for the Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds concert which was at the State Theatre. The theatre is one of these old theatres that is decorated in over the top renaissance/rococo themed tableaus and carvings, with fake gilt everywhere. I hope it never changes, because I really doubt that style will ever come back into fashion. It's ridiculous and I love it.

It was the perfect venue for an artist like Nick Cave, who is also completely over the top. He has a style that only he could get away with.

Seriously, nobody rocks the combed back hair and shiny shirt like Nick Cave does. And nobody else should.

It was one of the most incredible shows I've ever been to. He's a very compelling performer, and the Bad Seeds were pretty amazing as well. It also must be noted that one of the Bad Seeds, Warren Ellis, has one of the most amazing beards.

Ok, since this is primarily a knitting blog, of course I have to talk about knitting a bit.

In the car on the way to Minneapolis, this is the progress I made on my Ease sweater. Further updates to come in future posts.

We also made an obligatory visit to StevenBe. I was just planning on stopping in to take advantage of the opportunity to get some Stephen and Steven (this would be Stephen West, knitting rockstar and one of my favourite designers, and Steven Berg himself, the owner of StevenBe) tour exclusive yarn (since the tour included a stop at StevenBe on the very day that we were in Minneapolis with time to kill, what are the chances??). But then I fell down accidentally on purpose several times and ended up buying all of the yarn that I had fallen on… okay not really but honestly I blame the Enabler partially for this one. He earned his nickname this day, oh yes he did. Now that all of this yarn has found a home in my stash, the yarn diet is officially back on.

So as I mentioned, I was theoretically in the shop just to get the tour exclusive yarn (which is the green yarn in the bottom right of the above picture, plucky knitter yarn in the "with a PH" colorway. The very helpful and persuasive shop assistant insisted that we also go to the upstairs area to actually meet Stephen West who was teaching a class on how to make swants (pants made out of an old sweater). So we went upstairs to meet him and I fangirled a bit and we chatted for a few moments and then he said that I should stay and make some swants too! The Enabler (being the lovely, patient, enabling husband that he is) said that he didn't mind.

So I stayed.

And this happened.