New Duds, New Home

I. Tag's New Duds 

A friend of my auntie, Gina (who is my age), in Wisconsin volunteered to knit a sweater for a girlette. Gina has been creating textile art since she was nine.
Tag went in the mail for bespoke tailoring.
 Gina's dog Stanley helped.

Tag got a lot more than a sweater!
Pants knitted in oatmeal yarn, and crocheted jacket and tam in Harrisville Shetland wool yarn, with vintage buttons--all designed by Gina:

It's funny who is and isn't into toys. I can't predict. (Some of my coworkers, for instance, give me little things, "for the reds.")

My auntie is not one of them. "So cute," is all she ever says. 
She seemed baffled to see Gina and me engaging with them.
Here, Gina is telling me how she had planned a red outfit, but Tag had said she preferred this gold-flecked green...

Another of the girlettes stayed behind with Gina. The girlette was so new to me, I didn't even know her name. "Maybe she'll tell you," I said to Gina.

When I got home, Gina had texted, "Her name is Bridget, and she says she wants something she can garden in."


II. New Home 

On the way to Wisconsin for my birthday, bink & I stopped to see a friend I hadn't seen in twenty years: Tracy and I had been good friends at nineteen, when we worked together at a cooperatively run restaurant. We reconnected this past Christmas when I sent Tracy a card and she sent back a box of her handmade chocolates.

I'd brought along all the girlettes, thinking one of Tracy's little granddaughters might want one.
They did not.

I was telling Tracy that Sparkle & Bounce used to live in Las Vegas and pick up cigarette butts to re-roll and sell.
Tracy pointed to Bounce (the one in gold) and said,
"She started it."

That is exactly true! 
"How did you know?" I asked.

"It's obvious," she said.
So---Sparkle and Bounce elected to stay with Tracy.

This is an unflattering photo of Tracy, but I want to show the girlettes' new life.

Tracy started a chocolate house in 2006. 
She got the idea after a couple other careers (and her first marriage) had tanked. 
She lay around reading mystery books for a long time. "I was pouting," she said. In one of the mysteries, set in Vienna, the detective goes into a chocolate house.
A chocolate house?
Tracy got off the couch and started one––Sjolind's Chocolate House.

(She's like that. Also she'd found a husband of the type who says, "You have a vision? Let's do it.")

Sjolind's makes and serves food and drink, mostly non-chocolate, and also it's a chocolate-making factory, where they make chocolate from scratch, starting with the raw cocoa beans.

Penny Cooper got a tour.  Photos by bink, from her Instagram.
(The only sad thing is, I'm actually not a big fan of chocolate...!)