Warm and Fuzzy

The Warm and Fuzzy fundraiser for 2015 is history now, and very successful!  People had fun (several commented that it was their favorite event at work), $3763 was raised, and all of the items found new homes.  I calculated that 56% of the final total was from bids on my work - the rest was from the bake sale, items donated by other people, and people just giving me more than they owed.  Several people won a bidding war only to turn around and gift the item to someone else who had been bidding.  Top bids were $150 for a painting, a copy of a Monet, by a fellow scientist who also flies his own plane and plays violins in orchestras, a real Renaissance man, and also $150 for the Island Playset (below).  Next was $120 for homebrewed beer (20 bottles of 22 oz of the brew of choice).

When I set up the tables, I couldn't find the zombie, but I had his picture on the bid sheet so he found a home, and eventually I found him under my bed by trying to think like a cat who had found it: where would it end up?  Bed it was.  The Star Wars figures were popular, of course, as were the baby items.  As usual it was impossible to predict what would get the fiercest bidding.  And 4 lots of homemade pierogies got bids of $70 - $80.

Yes, I already started something for next year, because that box of yarn was taunting me.  But I still have Christmas items to make, so I try not to let it hog all of my free time.

I visited my parents in Florida, and worked on a hat, finished a sweater, and did most of a headband during the trip.  The sweater pieces have been blocked and are ready to sew together once Christmas stuff is done, but I have a lot of leftover yarn from it.  It's lovely smooth shiny Cascade Ultra Pima fine, about 500 yards in tan, which is probably enough to make a baby blanket, but tan?  Who makes a tan baby blanket?  I like this pattern, which I have made before with Ultra Pima, but I'm not sure if I have enough yarn or enough interest to do it again.

This is the Gluten-Free Yarn Nerd, and a shout-out to some incredible bread is due.  GF bread basically is miserable stuff texture-wise, and I can pretty much never get through a sandwich without the bread crumbling before I finish, but lo!  Behold the best GF bread ever: Schar (imagine an umlaut over the a) gluten free Artisan Baker Multigrain Bread!  It sits on the store shelf at room temperature.  It's soft and flexible and chewy and non-crumbly when you first open the package, and wonder of wonders, it's still like that several days later at room temperature!  I have been reveling in sandwiches all week.  I almost never eat them because the bread is not worth it, but I nearly swooned with delight eating a grilled sandwich tonight.  You don't even have to toast this bread to make it edible.  Schar, you win the gluten-free universe.  Now if only you could make GF saltines...