Meet Karen, owner of Arctic Needle in Anchorage, Alaska. (See? This is what can happen if you don’t send me a picture. It was a tossup between this one and one of a crocodile with mud on its head. I went with the AK animal.)

Arctic Needle has for three years now been my LNS (local needlework shop). Prior to that, my LNS was in Oregon. Karen allows me to store my models on her walls when they’re not traveling to trade shows, so if you’re visiting Alaska and would like to see Funk & Weber Designs models, stop in at Arctic Needle.

Last fall during the first Bookmark Challenge, Karen registered to participate, held stitch-ins, and helped host two Make-It/Take-It events at Anchorage Public Libraries. She didn’t think she’d have time to stitch bookmarks herself, but she was wrong. “I always carry with me enough supplies to stitch bookmarks if I find small blocks of time while waiting for something or someone,” she says, and that enabled her to stitch a dozen bookmarks. Got that? Twelve! There’s a lesson for us all in there, eh?

“The best part,” she says, “was that I was able to finish and donate five bookmarks I had stitched at least ten years ago.”

Eureka! This is a great idea! Do you have any UFOs (UnFinished Objects) lying around in your stash? (Um…only a couple dozen or so.) They don’t have to be bookmark designs, per se; maybe you can turn them into bookmarks. What a great way to finish partially-worked projects.