midwestknitgirl

I have been married for 12 years. I hit a milestone birthday this year - 45 - gasp!

I've been knitting (again) for the last 8 years and consider myself to be an intermediate to experienced knitter.

I love to knit sweaters and socks for myself and my family and hats, scarves and mittens for charity - along with baby items for charity as well. I've recently become hooked on lace work using some sea cell and silk yarn.

I'm not a fan of novelty yarns, I prefer wool and wool blends, alpaca, silk, muskox, buffalo, cotton, bamboo - why use scratchy acrylic when you have so many other incredible options?

Yes, I am aware that I'm a yarn snob.

Oh, I love fiber in all colors except orange. Unless it's mixed with other colors - think sunset. Now that's where orange is beautiful.

Eric Clapton, Norah Jones, Miles Davis, B-52's, Jimmy Buffet, The Eagles, The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Simon & Garfunkel, Rolling Stones

Gone With The Wind, Fried Green Tomatoes, all Alfred Hitchcock movies, The Wizard of Oz, Labyrinth

Any version of Law & Order, any version of CSI (except Miami), my soap All My Children, Last Comic Standing, Survivor. But I'd rather knit or read than watch TV.

Knitting, stained glass work, beadwork (stitch markers, bookmarks, etc). I also enjoy cooking and baking.

CANDY:

I'm a big fan of dark chocolate and white chocolate. About the only time I eat milk chocolate is chocolate covered raisins.

I also like the sour/sweet treats like SweetTarts and Starburst.

Minty flavors of candy are great too.

SALTY STUFF:

I love spices. Hot or flavorful or mixed. In fact, I use cumin and coriander in a lot of my cooking. Oh, and chili powder. But I'm also simplistic in my cooking - sometimes just pepper and onions and some green herbs will do the trick. Minnesota bred with a non-Minnesota palate. :-)

I make my own homemade salsa and can about 22 jars every few months and hope that one day I'll be able to sell it to the public and actually make money off of it.

BEVERAGES:

I love coffee, no cream, no syrups, just straight up. Hot chocolate with marshmallows works too! As for tea, I can take it or leave it. Depends on the flavor.

I have an awesome wood recipe box that my uncle made me and really enjoy finding interesting recipe cards to use for my favorite recipes. I like having a variety of kitchen towels to choose from - holiday patterns, seasonal patterns, etc. I also like having a variety of potholders, same as the towels - variety is good (for solid colors - sage green, pale yellow and tan work great).

My kitchen is currently all about lemons but in a retro way. I'll have to get a picture out here of the curtains I made so you can see what I mean. The walls are a pretty lemon color that isn't obnoxious at all!

I love to try new recipes - each time I host a Stitch & Whine I try a new appetizer or crockpot recipe. My friends are great taste testers for me!

Potholders are also fun to collect (never have enough of those) and handmade anything is always a great idea for me. :-)