Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Adventures in a yarn shop...

Hello dear readers! Very glad to be back with you today. Yesterday was just one of those days, you know? The weekend, as you saw if you follow me on Twitter, left a lot to be desired, and then yesterday went sort of predictably:

Day starts off: Eh. You don't want to be in a bad mood, but you're not exactly optimistic for a stellar day given what you're working with.

Day progresses: A perk of hope. Get lulled into a false sense of security.

Day continues to progress: Hopes unceremoniously squashed.

Work day ends: You are despondent.

You go home: Crapola.

Day ends: You are drinking.

Some days are just like that. Not very often, thankfully. Today, things are decidedly better and I'm feeling perky. And all this despite the fact that it's going to be the warmest day of the year so far here, and my car is guaranteed to resemble an oven by time I get into it to drive home tonight. Huzzah!

But now that I'm feeling back to my old self, I wanted to briefly chronicle my experience last Friday doing something that I have never done before, but will now become a regular part of my summer rotation: a pilgrimage to the local yarn shop.

Given the sheer amount of yarn that I own, you're probably wondering where the heck I got it if I don't go to the yarn store. Well, dear reader, I am an introvert. Introverts shop online. I go "in", I take my time, I carefully browse the offerings and make obsessive compulsive checks on Ravelry for color swatches and reviews, I put stuff in and take stuff out of my cart at a whim, all without anybody talking to me. Isn't it glorious?!

But on Friday, I was having lunch with my knitting group, and we agreed to take a field trip to a local shop that we've all been meaning to try out. We wanted an adventure.

It's a small place, but the minute we stepped into the door, it was as if the very gates of heaven had opened up. Yarn was stacked into cubbies covering every inch of wall and spilling out of baskets on tables and on the floor. A group of women was seated in a cozy nook, knitting and chatting. Knitting and crochet magazines and books filled a bookcase and were tucked into some of the cubbies for inspiration. A swift and ball winder was at the ready up by the register to immediately wind up your purchase so that you could cast on the instant you got home. I nearly died.

We immediately spread out to divide and conquer. I inspected the entire store, but two areas drew me sort of like a dog is drawn to certain spots which are inevitably stinky, but in this case the result wasn't nearly so gross: the sock yarn kiosk and the cotton cubbie.

Fancy sock yarn always does me in. It is inevitably tightly spun into a springy coil and hand dyed in gorgeous saturated colors that self-stripe or self-pattern or self-something-really-cool. There was some Frolicking Feet sock yarn that I could not stay away from, in irresistibly titled colorways like Tiger, Sugar Maple, A Maine Summer Sky, and Cozy Cove. I kept picking the hanks up, and reluctantly putting them back down. At over $20 a hank, I had better have a really special gift in mind, and right now I simply do not need more sock yarn. I have other beautiful hanks at home which are still unknit. So you see, $25 for a skein of yarn does not put me off in the least, no sir. I just have to be able to justify it with a specific project, and right now I can't. Blast.

So I moved on to the cotton area.I don't really need any cotton right now either, but it's the summer and a girl could always use a new dress scarf, right? Cotton is the perfect fiber for summer, and I do adore seasonal projects. As soon as I got over there, I honed in on a gorgeous skein of Cascade Ultra Pima. Pima cotton looks like silk, and the shine makes the colors simply glow. This one in particular I couldn't stay away from:


In person, it looks like a deep turquoise, and I was smitten. In the fall and winter, I'm all about oranges, reds and greens, but in the spring and summer I can't stay away from blues. There's just something about that color in the summer that I adore, reminds me of a cozy seaside village.

I held it several times, like a new baby. There was only 1 skein in stock in that colorway, so the only possible use for it would be a scarf unless I ordered more. Which I really didn't want to do. I looked at the other colors, which were also beautiful, but none spoke to me the way this skein did. Unhappily, I put it back, thinking of the large containers I have at home filled with yarn. And the yarn that won't fit in the containers that I snuck into the guest room closet. And the yarn that I have tucked into a filing cabinet at work. Oops.

Eventually, everyone else was checking out and having their yarn wound and I was mentally patting myself on the back for my self control when suddenly I was at the register and that skein of turquoise yarn was on my elbow. How did that happen?! I swear it jumped on there of its own volition, and since it was only $10, I didn't want to hurt it's feelings by not taking it home. That wouldn't have been very nice, now would it?

So I bought it, and had it wound, and threw caution to the wind and cast on that very night for a seafoam stitch scarf. LOVING. I will post a photo when it's done and in its beloved home draped around my neck.

I've been doing lots of knitting and crocheting lately, seasonal items, and it's been soothing me greatly. What have you all been up to so far this month? Comments, please!

:)

3 comments:

  1. I should find a way to lull you with promises of free swiss chalet to knit me a pair of fab wool socks. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think you made the right choice. When you find JUST the right thing, you know you'll kick yourself later if you don't get it. At least I always do. Perhaps because I always err on the side of not buying stuff, so I have a long list of things I should have bought when I found them.

    I would love to browse a yarn store instead of shopping online. How else can you be sure it's soft enough, and that the color is exactly what you see? I passed a store called "Never Enough Yarn" a couple of weeks ago and nearly pulled over right then and there. It sounded like the owners must know me. ;)

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for commenting! I read and appreciate every single one, and I will respond to each one personally!