Spring has sprung

The arrival of spring spurred me to put away the flannel sheets for the season.
When I got out the spring sheets, I remembered that this was a new set I bought last year from the Luxe & Liberty site, a site that carries a variety of made in USA gift and home goods.
The sheets I selected are called DreamFit, they are made in the USA, and their trademark says they are "The World’s Strongest & Best Fitting Sheet".
The fitted sheet has elastic straps to better hold on to the corners of the mattress. I have to say that I no longer have any problems with the sheet coming off on my husband's side of the bed, which used to happen quite often.
You can view the rest of the details on the DreamFit bedding on this page of Luxe & Liberty's web site.

Down on the farm

Maybe you've heard of farm-to-table restaurants. Farm-to-table dining is inspired by a direct relationship between a farm and a restaurant.
In central Illinois, we have dined at June (Peoria Heights), an upscale restaurant that uses local and seasonal products from a network of farmers. From their web site, I also learned that "the chefs stretch the season by canning and preserving seasonal items; all breads are baked in-house; and all butchering is done in-house".
We have also discovered the Harvest Café in Delavan. Here they use use products such as cheeses from Prairie Fruits Farm (Champaign), and meats from Meadow Haven Farm (Sheffield).

On our most recent breakfast at the Harvest Café, I tried the eggs Benedict, made with local eggs and home made Canadian bacon. The fried potatoes, which I think were fingerling, we crisply and delicious.
Not only are these great restaurants supporting local farms, they are also able to reduce some of the cost associated with transporting food from out of state and provide you with a meal that contains fresher ingredients than some establishments serve.

I want to ride my bicycle

We went to our local bike shop over the weekend to drop my bicycle off for a spring tune-up.
While browsing in the shop I noticed this Genuine Innovations CO2 tire inflator with a made in USA emblem at the bottom corner of the package. Next time we need one I know which one we will buy.
We went down to the basement to scope out the bikes and ran across a Worksman bike, also made in USA, marked by a flag sticker on the bar several inches down from the seat.
I remember finding out about Worksman bikes when I first started researching made in USA products. Worksman has been manufacturing bikes in the United States for more than 110 years. From their web site:
"Back in 1898, in the back of a retail store in lower Manhattan, Morris Worksman started to develop specialty bicycles and tricycles that would be useful for local merchants to use. He saw a need for conveyances that could take the place of the horse and buggy."
And in case you were wondering, they do make other styles than the three-wheeled model.
In the 10 years we've been seeking out American-made products, we've seen the number of such bikes in stores drop dramatically. It's good to see one company still carrying on.

Soft AND doughy

Looking for Christmas gifts for some wee ones last year I discovered Mary's Softdough. It's a non-crumbly modeling dough packed in a recyclable plastic tub made in the USA in rainbow hues of red, yellow, green, blue and purple. The product is made by Terrapin Toys designed and manufactured in Eugene, Oregon.
If you can't find it in stores, I have seen it on Amazon and Nico & Zoe Toys, which, by the way, has a made in USA toy section on their site. Look for a link in their sidebar.

I put some new shoes on

Many years ago when we first started seeking out made in USA products we found out about New Balance shoes. I'm happy to say New Balance still produces several styles of shoes right here in the US.
I've had a pair that's probably eight years old now. I started walking during lunch recently, and found that my shoes no longer fit my feet very well, and paired with some bad socks gave me a killer blister that kept me sidelined for a few days.
I hopped on the trusty Internet once I noticed that not only were my shoes kind of old, they were also size 6 1/2, and for the last few years I have mostly been buying size 7.
I checked out the New Balance tennies at Sierra Trading Post and Zappos, both of which display whether the shoes are made in USA on their site. I have also found New Balance in some brick and mortar stores including TJ Maxx.
I picked out a pair that received good reviews and ordered them from Sierra.

The shoes arrived within a couple of days and I was pleased to see that rather than putting a box of shoes into another box filled with peanuts, as has been the shipping method of many a package I have received over the years (not specifically from Sierra), Sierra had simply taken the shoe box, put it in a bag and sent it on it's way. It arrived fully intact.

I took the shoes out of the box and checked the tag on the tongue for the familiar made in USA designation, which you may be able to make out on the top line of the tag in the photo here.
I put my new shoes on Saturday for a breakfast outing to a local farm-to-table restaurant and a day spent enjoying the great outdoors to break them in for a few hours, and I think I managed to step in sheep poop, dog poop and some thick mud, so I now call them properly Christened!

A stylin' lid

My husband likes to wear some sort of straw hat while boating to keep the heat off his bald head.
For Christmas 2009, I was on the hunt for a nice made in USA hat for him. In my searches, I ran across MyCubanStore.
I picked out a great looking coconut fedora with a jaunty ribbon featuring several colors. It's a very nice looking, well made hat.