A Quick Overview

It was a quick trip to the MIL’s over the 4th of July weekend. Grilltech did most of the driving, because I’d rather knit. When I did drive he was bored, forced to watch the river through the window. So I let him finish the drive, which made us both happy. I did finish my first anklet on Thursday. On Saturday, I finished the second one. They are comfortably ensconced on my feet as I typed most of this post.

I used Persistent Illusion’s page of area’s yarn stores and managed to make it to a couple of them.

The first shop – Stitchcraft - was pretty new, opened within a couple of weeks. We walk up to the door and find it locked. We can see people in the store, but the door won’t open. We’re standing there talking with the but why won’t the door open? Tried the door again, and she came running over and opened the door. Her husband and children were at the store before we showed up and one of the children had locked the door. We laughed and wandered about the store. Her shop only carries natural fibers, excluding sock yarns which have some nylon in them. She didn’t have a real big selection, but her shop was bright and airy. I did find some trekking bamboo I couldn’t live without.

The second shop - Unraveled - was about four blocks away so we walked there. There was a knit group of about four ladies there, talking about local politics. Grilltech sat down and was happy, because it reminded him my LYS. It’s nice to know knitters are the same around the country. The second shop has the lived in feeling. I did pick up two skeins of an alpaca sock yarn. Not sure how it will turn out, because I’ve hard that alpaca doesn’t make real good sock yarn. But you only live once.

While I was paying, someone called on her phone line. She had frowned because she wasn’t sure the payment had gone through correctly, but it had. Later that night I checked the bank account and saw the payment had been deducted twice. So on Saturday we went back and I explained the error and she was going to check into it. We made it back and I checked the bank again, and it had corrected itself. So, I’ll call her on Sunday and let her know it had been handled by the bank.

On the 4th, Grilltech and I went to his friend’s house. I think I had met him once ages ago. Grilltech had a wonderful time reminiscing of times along ago and far away. The sampling of beers gave him ideas of what he might want to brew. Next year he wants to bring some of his homebrews to share. I did chat, but spent most of the time knitting quietly in the middle of the group letting conversation flow around me. After all, it was more about Grilltech then me.

Turns out Grilltech’s friend knows the second LYS owner because the shop used to have a coffee shop there. It has since moved out, but he said if the espresso had stayed he’d most likely end up a knitter himself.

On Saturday, we went downtown to do more shopping. We walked about twelve blocks and we were very tired. The one LYS we went to, I didn’t like so we didn’t stay long. We walked down to a giant book store. OMG, you see the cartoons of you are here. They need it. It was that big. The knitting section was several rows long and very full. It didn’t have the Barbara Walker treasury of knitting. I picked up a book called Knitting Lace by Barbara Abbey, I opened the book and saw the price tag of $9.00. It was written back in 1974, some of the terms used aren’t part of today’s standardized knitting words. Grilltech purchased about five books; our total was about $150. Ouch! Later when Grilltech was peeling off the stickers and pointed out my book was $65!! Guess I’d better make good use of it. The book pictured is not the book I have, mine is copyrighted 1974.

We went to lunch at the Deschutes Brewery; Grilltech ordered the sampler while I had a Pepsi. I had sips and decided I really liked the Nitro Cinder Cone Red. Liked it enough I let Grilltech take about two sips of it then I finished the sample. WOW! I’ll need to look around and see if we can find a six pack of it.

I managed to get several more rounds of the sweater completed. Several? It’s almost as long as my hand. I’ll get pictures posted soon™.