New Online Items
By Owner: Bonnie Meier

Last month we explained how we are putting many of our items online either on the Tulip Festival site or on the Shop Where I Live site. Well we have added several items. If you go to www.octupilfestival.com/shop you will find several new items. You purchase these through the Tulip Festival Committee so our name is not associated online with them, but we have added boys' Dutch fishermen hats. We have several in small, medium and large. They have elastic in the back so that they will fit several sizes. We also added some very nice original water color pictures that were done by Molly Van Roekel. When we asked people to take back their consignment items, Molly wanted to leave these with us. Originally she did three nice pictures; one of yellow tulips, one of red and one of red and yellow. They were for sale at $200 each. We sold the one with red and yellow tulips quite quickly, but we still have the one with yellow tulips and the one with red tulips available. She has come down to the price of $125 each, which is a bargain considering they are in lovely frames.

On Shop Where I Live site, we added some Clover Knitting needles and those are all at a 25% discount. We just put our 5" double pointed needles in the online catalog, but we also have a large variety of other needles available. I hope to get some of the Gutermann thread on soon. Remember, if you live in Alton or Orange City we will deliver anything on this site at no cost. If you live in one the Northwest Iowa counties or LeMars, we will deliver for a $5.00 fee. If you live outside that area, we will have to arrange either for you to pick them up, we will mail them, or deliver them at a prearranged fee.

Sewing Machines Coming Back
By Owner: Bonnie Meier

You may remember that when we had the downtown store we sold used sewing machines that had been updated by Leonard Blok. When we sold our building, he moved his used sewing machine business to another business that had a downtown location called Stitch Studio. Well, last January Stitch Studio went completely out of business. (We didn't go out of business, we just moved our location to our house and did downsize quite a bit). Anyway, Leonard asked me recently if we would be willing to be a conduit for his machines again. I said that we would be happy to. He also repairs old machines. So, I'm anticipating that we will again have machines available sometime this summer. He always sells them with a warranty that they will work, unless he specifies "as is". It will be good to be working with Leonard again.

4th of July Celebration
By Owner: Bonnie Meier

On Sunday, June 28, there will be a celebration in Central Park in Orange City to celebrate the 4th of July. There will be the reading of the Constitution and other activities. The program will start off with the singing of the National Anthem by Jennifer Scholton. In the past Jennifer has sung the National Anthem for the Chicago Cubs in Wrigley Field, so we feel honored that she is willing to do this for us.

Because of Covid 19 we do not have rain plans. If the weather is bad, the event will just be cancelled because we didn't want to move it inside. It will start at 2:30 p.m. and if you are in the area, you might want to take in the celebration.

Juliana Korver and the Tiny Room Battle Challenge 2
By Owner: Bonnie Meier & her daughter, Juliana Korver

Julliana is currently ranked the Number One woman Frisbee freestyler in the world. Due to Covid almost all Freestyle events have been cancelled this year. In the meantime, freestylers have been practicing at home. Earlier this year there was a contest that involved people from all over the world doing a single freestyle movement in their own "tiny rooms" while on a zoom call with each other and the judges. This was a bracketed 1 on 1 battle where each player got the chance to do their best moves within 10 seconds followed by their challenger. The judges would declare the winner of that point. As the field narrowed, it took more points to move on in the competition. Until only one person remained and was declared the winner. There were 2 pools, one for women and one was open to anyone. The winner of the women's pool, was Juliana and the winner of the open pool was Pablo Azul who happens to be a successful artist (painter) from Medellin, Columbia, South America.

Freestyle is usually done with a partner so this is a new challenge for these artists. I watched the contest several weeks ago and it was fascinating. The MC was from New York. Judges were from Rome, Seattle and New York. Contestants were from Africa, Europe, the United States and South America. The coordination it took to put this on was fantastic because it was early morning for some, mid day for others, and evening for others. But it was fun to watch. Three judges rated each event. I understand this time the contest will span two weekends instead of trying to get it all done in one day. If you want to see some good sports entertainment, you can go to frisbeeguru.com and watch on July 18 & 19 and July 25 & 26. I'm sure you will enjoy it, especially since a lot of sports have been cancelled until next year or havent started yet.