Yarn bus or BUST!

I managed to drag Katie and Ruth with me one week before Rhinebeck to Flying Fingers on the Yarn Bus today. The object of the mission was to exchange four skeins of the Lamb's Pride Bulky that I had left over from the SURPRISE (oh man, I can't wait to post pictures of it....) and to come back to Manhattan alive with minimal damage done to my bank account and credit cards.

I think I succeeded. I had hoped to exchange these skeins for yarn that I would be able to knit the Over the Knee socks from Holiday Knits with. I haven't been able to get the pattern out of my head all week (and now that project has turned into several other projects at the same time somehow - more on that later.) and really wanted to start on them like, yesterday. The woman at Flying Fingers looked at the pattern, and professed that she also needed to make them (which is CORRECT!), and then oohed because she had the perfect yarn for them. She called out to the warehouse...and someone comes back with the first covetable yarn of the day: Aurora 4. They just got it in. It hasn't even been priced yet! She's going to call me when it has been priced and put into their system. I think I'm going to go to School Products tomorrow to see how much they're selling it for up there. I've never been to School Products (I'd link to their site, but it just says where they are and that their site is under construction) before, so I'm pretty excited about making another trek out there. I've used a bulky Aurora before. I made my newsboy hat from SNB Nation out of it, and if they're making fingering weight yarn...OBVIOUSLY I need to knit socks out of it. No questions asked!

So, sad though I was that I could not procure the desired yarn right away, I turned to the rest of the store. Running my fingers over alpaca, angora, cashmere, and wool, they stopped on yet more merino. Mission Falls 1824. You seee, this is convenient. It's exactly what the Candy Cane Hat also from Holiday Knits are made of! This is the point where you think that I only own this pattern book. I harken back to the time a few months ago where my friend Tessier helped me out for 2-4 hours on the phone with my iPod trying to get it up and running again. At the time, I promised that I would pay him back by knitting him a hat. This is the perfect hat for that. Funny that, it's about the same price as the Lamb's Pride Bulky I'm exchanging...hm...obviously that must be had. Sadness averted.

Now, if you've ever been with me to a yarn store, you will understand that I touch everything. I ooh. I aaah! I get quite animated. I was very excited to be at this one yarn shop. I also have no self control. I get patterns in my head. I know they will be knit, but if I have a pattern in my head, i might as well get the yarn for it right? So, I'd been wanting to make another pair of socks. The lady (damn me for not asking her name) that was keeping the shop pointed out some beautiful hand dyed yarns to me. They were, indeed, beautiful. And then she showed me their cousins...the sock yarns....yes, well some of that came home with me too. I need more socks, the ones i'm wearing right now have holes in them. What I need now are clogs to show off my handknit socks...I might have to see if I can steal a pair from my mom the next time I'm in Rhode Island.

The other side of the Over the Knee Socks project is that I really have been wanting to design a whole outfit around these suckers (if you've seen them, you'll know why). I found the perfect skirt at Anthropologie today, but it was just about as much as the Lobster Pot Mohair (and uh...well...we know where the priority lies on that one now don't we?) and I just don't spend that much on clothes ever. Katy had the brilliant idea of making it, and suddenly i'm going to try to learn how to sew, as soon as I can buy a similar pattern online (the Simplicity website doesn't love me and won't let me go to the account page on any browser I use). This skirt will be cute, made by me, and maybe even somewhat decent.

Here are the new additions just discussed:



We decided some of us were hungry, some of us were parched, and so we attempted to venture out to nourish ourselves. Not quite in time to save me from this:



Those, my friends, are skeins of 1,000 yards of Lobster Pot Mohair. IT NEEDS TO BE PROCURED FOR MY SWEATER USAGE. It's also a bit out of my budget at $135 a pop. I fondled it, I snuggled with it, I thought about it all day. Actually, we were on our way out to find some juice and I reached up to touch it just once more. Katy, ever sensible, yoinked my bag and practically dragged me out of the store. Which is for the better I think. Even if the woman at the cafe had no idea what a smoothie is. Strawberry smoothie does not equal strawberry flavored milk, no matter how hard you try.

So anyway...to recap, here's the trip - Beth, this is for you because you said I wasn't posting enough pictures:



The Yarn Bus in its natural habitat.



Me in front of the Yarn Bus (please note the giddy smile)!!



Katy and Ruth smile while boarding the yarn bus for the trip back home.