Petunia rambles on and on….

Got up on Saturday morning undecided about the day. Sure, I had chores – and plenty of them. We could name the dust bunnies living here. Laundry pile has more acreage than some foreign countries. And if I don’t get to that spill in the refridgerator…..

So I went back to the stash and started rooting through, and the underlying theme of the whole room is DO NOT BUY MORE YARN! This was being screamed at me, from all corners.  From the 3 sweaters’ worth of Cascade 220, from the Bretton Heather, again enough for several sweaters. Lighter weight merino beauties with thoughts twisted into their plies of beautiful shawls – not really laceweights, mind you. Those would have me holding ice packs to my eyes, but yarns just a wee bit thicker. And then, there’s the sock stash, with a national flag of its own. 

But I have a gift card from Stitches with Style, the L(?)YS in Newark, DE, won in a drawing of names during the Eastern Shore Yarn Crab Crawl last September. Although I was notified that I had won a $25 credit promptly, I decided not to use it then. I had been to 6 of the shops participating in the Crawl, and spent money in each one – in some, I dropped a tidy amount! With so much spent, and the holidays coming on quickly, I decided that I would put off another expedition for a good while.  

Yesterday was the day! I said good-bye to the dog and the dust bunnies, and headed north, GPS plotting my way, and the satellite radio entertaining me for the trip. When I got up there, I sent a text message to Son #2, letting him know that I was 5 minutes away from his house, at the yarn store!

Stitches with Style is a great shop, and you know that before you fully get in the door.  I heard laughter, loud happy laughter – always a good sign! The staff is great, there’s room to sit, work, spread out your stuff, people there to direct questions, get answers. There’s friendly and helpful shoppers there – if you sing out a query, someone will answer you, show you how. They have a great selection of yarns, and I could have done great damage to their inventory and my debit card. I’m proud to say that I did not.

Just in the door, I saw Cathy, who I met at the newly formed Kent County Knitters and Crocheters group which had it’s first meeting in Dover last week! And she says, “And Rena’s over there!” pointing to a table where projects abound. What luck to drive for an hour and meet up with my neighbor from around the corner.

Anyway, with serious intent to avoid picking up yarn – well, I could look at it – I bought 2 pairs of 20-inch circular needles, US sizes 2 and 3. This shop is no longer stocking the Addi line of needles, switching over to Hiya Hiya.  I’m undecided here.  The Hiya Hiya tips are smooth, shiny, pointy. Cables are twisted up from being in the packaging; I’m sure this will simmer out when I put them into hot water. But I started using the pair of size 2’s and there’s a rough spot at one of the joins. These needles may be half the price of the Addi’s, but if that rough spot snags my yarn and pisses me off every time I use them, I’d have been better off paying the extra money. These aren’t “one-time, throw-away” items; I expect to use them again and again for years. Maybe a really fine nail file will smooth this problem away?

A skein of Yummy sock yarn threw itself at me, shades of blue. I feared the trauma to the yarn, were I to reject it. Heh. But that’s all I got, seriously. AND, when I cast on at home, it was stash yarn!! 

About that time, Son arrived, sat to chat a bit, and off we went to lunch at McGlynn’s Pub, very nearby. Being taken out to lunch by a tall, handsome man is never a bad thing. He did place an order for wool hats for the winter.  As he said, “Don’t spend a fortune on the wool, or a decade making it. I lose them all the time!” I asked if he was willing to hand-wash, so I’d know what sort of yarn to use; his reply was that he usually loses them before they need washing, so that wasn’t an issue. Oh, well, fine then. Better to know this upfront, though, and heaven knows, a simple watch cap style can be knocked out quickly. 

At home, I wound sock yarn and cast on 2 socks on two of my new circs, thus finding the rough spot quickly. Damn - one problem with the L(?)YS being an hour away. If these needles had been bought here in town, I’d be taking them back. 

All in all, a lovely day, though – wouldn’t it be wonderful it they were all so nice?

Just rain or snow, depending on the temperature and it’s hovering just above freezing now.

The fog today was eerie.

The ground is snow-covered, because the heavens threw snowballs at us all night; they apparently broke apart on impact.  Not a vast accumulation, but enough to close damn near every school district in the state, which really isn’t that much cause the whole state is only the size of a large bag of potatoes. This is cause for much aggravation for many parents as most jobs do not cease with inclement weather. I went outdoors early this morning, spent some time scraping a crust of ice off the snow on my car, and really had very little trouble getting to work. Of course, I live much closer to the center of town than I did 20 years ago, and do recognize that conditions out there may be altogether different. Sad to say that the entire state goes into such panic and dismay over 2 inches of the stuff.

Now, the ground/grass is completely snow-covered. And the sky is the very same exact color as the snow.  And it’s snowing a bit, and raining a bit, and FOGGY. Freaky!!

I predict pineapples soon, raining down on us.  Or those cows that got sucked up in the Twister movie – they gotta come down sometime.