Posts
Written on January 19, 2011
Weekend Getaway
This past weekend visited family in Wichita Ks. My parents drove up from Dodge City wile drove down from Manhattan. We met in Park City and then ventured on to Wichita to visit my lil’ sis, brother-in-law, and my “just turned five years old” niece. Oh yeah and I got to do a bit of yarn shopping. I didn’t get to see them during Christmas so there were all kinds of presents given out. But most of the talk, when we weren’t singing “Happy Birthday” was about yarn or knitting. My mom knitted as a kid but sticks mostly with Broomstick Lace baby blankets (bastard child of crochet and knit) now. My sister, in the past year, has become increasingly interested in knitting. She took a beginners class at her LYS (Local Yarn Store) and has been clicking away ever since. The most shocking thing about my visit with my sister’s family was that my sister and I were both reading the same knitting related book. Sweater Quest by Adrienne Martini; find her blog at www.martinimade.com.
Why is this book exciting? Well, it’s kind of like an inner circle knitter, putting you under her wing and spilling juicy gossip about other inner circle knitters while she works up a complicated faire Isle sweater by the great Alice Starmore. But I was shocked that my sister was reading it. Didn’t think she was THAT interested in knitting. So I’m excited and want to buy my lil’ sis all of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s books so she can broaden her knit-lit. repertoire. The day after I got back home from my visit I decided I needed a long soak in the tub with the book. I was a few pages away from finishing Sweater Quest so I sat the book on the floor next to the tub. Well I got distracted among the bubbles and bath oil so once I was out and dressed I realized I’d left the book on the floor next to the tub. Upon picking it up I realized I must have splashed water over the edge, the entire back side and bottom of the book soaked up any water that was on the floor like a sea sponge. Blerg. And this isn’t just any book, it’s a library book. Double Blerg! So today my quest is to pay the library for a book I was going to buy eventually anyway. At least my copy will have some character.
As far as the yarn shopping in Wichita goes, I had fun but didn’t buy any crazy amazing yarn. Sad, I know. First we went to Twist, the nicest of the two yarn stores I’ve ever been in. The first time I was there we were the only customers and the girl running the place was a volunteer who was super helpful. This go around it was full of knitters sitting or standing around knitting and talking. There were also about 58 employees, or so it seemed, who wanted to know if I was “doing alright”. And I didn’t find a single yarn that I HAD to buy. Very sad. The next day we went to Michael’s craft stores (like a Hobby Lobby or Ben Franklin's). That is where I struck gold. They don’t really sell anything different from other craft stores and they certainly didn’t have ‘fancy’ yarn like any good knitting shop would. But they had some fun pattern books and some very fun colored Peaches and cream 100% cotton yarn. Perfect for crazy dishcloths for Christmas 2011. But most important; I got my hands on two skeins of Stitch Nation yarn for a future project, ‘Lettuce Knit’ arm warmers.
So I now have two current projects going, Broomstick Lace blanket for one of my preggo friends, and a ball band dish cloth with the peaches and cream yarn. It’s bright blue with pink bricks. The next one will be bright purple with blue bricks, the last one bright pink with purple bricks. Kind of a dish cloth trifecta of amazingness. Super excited.
