Sunday, July 02, 2006

Saturday Adventure

Oh what a good time I had! Fairly early in the day I set out with my traveling kit in tow (sock, a bag of animal crackers and a mug of ice water and quarters for the turnpike). First stop was Petsmart (I'll spare you pictures of cat food and litter). Got really stocked up on the cats' canned food on sale and 50 lbs of litter also on sale. Only problem is, I can't get it out of the car. Shall have to lure the nephew down later.

Then to Books a Million where I got some greeting cards, a fun light hearted mystery and this.
Aren't these little lambs adorable? If I had a lamb puppet, I could have discussions about wool with it. It should surely know something. The orange fabric ..well you'll hear about it a bit later.

Then it was off to the real part of the adventure. Remember when my Dye-O-Rama pal sent me her spindle that I didn't know how to use? Well the other night I was browsing through an old Spin-Off and on a page of pics of wheels there was a listing of the dealers and whoaaa...there was one in Oklahoma! I called Thursday to see if they could direct me to a video or something that I could purchase. And the lady said, "Why don't you come out and let me show you?" Well ok! So off I went to Mountain View Weavery. Way out in the country but not far from the interstate. A lovely place which is also her home. No mountains in view, but that was the name of the road. I get my spindle out and she says "Oh a homemade one." She didn't sound excited but once she used it, she commented over and over again how balanced it was. :-). She got things going and then it was my turn. Wow this is fun! See what I did?

The fatter stuff will thin out when I next spin cause it got loose from the hook on the way home..well I think it will. The light stuff at the bottom was what we started with but she said it was a bit too "sticky" for a beginner so we switched to this Corriedale. Gads, I think that's what it is. I forgot to write it down. I got to touch and sniff a bunch of roving including some baby camel. Pricey but ohhh so soft. It reminded me of baby breath. Not the flowers but the way their breath feels on your neck when they go to sleep on your shoulder. And the book has GOOD pictures and clear instructions.

Best of all she told me of a spinner here in my town and gave me her phone number and eMail address and said that a bunch gets together twice a month to spin, talk whatever. It's kind of a long way over there but maybe I can share rides.

Then, since I was already kinda far out, I drove north to Guthrie, a wonderful Victorian town and the home of SWAK. My first time there and gosh I have never seen so much yarn in one place. Folks were really nice and friendly without being pushy. I didn't plan on getting any yarn but this jumped into my arms and held on tightly. More sock yarn. heh. I really do have a very small sock yarn stash so this was needed, right? Please say yes :-)

Then it was time to set off for home. I had had about enough of holiday interstate driving so I cut through the country. At one time I had lived up there so it was kinda nice to drive by places I had lived and see how they were faring. I was a little bit sad to see that much of the farm land was now home to McMansions. Most of them appeared fairly new so there weren't trees or anything to anchor them. I thought they looked a bit like the new kid at school.

One more stop to grab a burger and then home. Oh but wait. I had seen a pattern (sewing) pattern I wanted and Hancocks was having a sale. Heh...so this orange fabric came home and hopefully soon will be another summer skirt. What is it with me and orange this year? Scuse me, I have some sewing, knitting, spinning, reading and napping to do. Hope your day is equally fun!

This was done this morning but my internet connection kept crashing. So, I managed during
one of the times to save the thing minus pics. And now I'm happy to say I've spun a bit; the new skirt is all sewn up; I'm cooking spagetti and then I need to knit a swatch. What a good day! :-)

6 comments:

~France said...

You had absolute fun, didn't ya?! Hahahaaaa ... you deserved it, and glad all went well, and you brought some good stuff home, too!

Ann said...

Your good day made me smile. Congratulations on taking time for you..to do some things that you wanted to do.

:o)

Ann

Susan said...

Paris,

Yes I surely did and new playthings even :-)

Susan said...

Ann,

Thanks...made me smile too! It was sort of weird. It almost seemed imperative that I have this adventure THIS weekend. So what the heck. I did it and I'm surely glad. Lots of new things to think about, that's for sure.

Laura said...

Wasn't it hard to get out of SWAK without an armload? I love that store, we have quite a few in Kansas City like it. The saleshelp there is perfect, too. Helpful, but not pushy. I love my browsing time.

Susan said...

ohhhhh Laura, if I win Publishers Clearing House I'll have to be sure and schedule a trip to KC yarn stores! At SWAK, I was impressed with their ability to figure out what I might want to see without being all pushy. And plenty of time to just wander.

One of the people that works (parttime I think)at my somewhat LYS is like that. Other than her, I sorta feel like I am either invisible or being a bother. Maybe that's MY problem, not their's :-)