Surprise Yarn Store Trip

I had lunch with a solo practice lawyer who has an office in Plano yesterday. As I left his office (he was being really helpful showing me how he has things set up), I specifically told myself, "I do not need more yarn. I am not going to the Woolie Ewe. Even though it's just down the street a few miles, I'm not going there."

As I told myself this, I managed to turn the wrong way, and instead of taking Parker to Preston like I'd intended to, I got turned around and found myself heading south on Custer. Plano has changed a bit since I lived there, and so it took me a few minutes to figure out that I was really going the wrong way. The next recognizable landmark? The Woolie Ewe.

I swear I didn't plan this. As far as I'm concerned, the car drove me there by itself. It was the yarn fumes. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. I bought two skeins of Regia sock yarn and Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac. I used money my aunt gave me as a graduation present, so it doesn't really count as spending money I don't have, either.

I don't have much of a yarn stash because I'm just not the kind of person who will spend $75+ on enough yarn for a completely mythical sweater. If I'm going to buy enough yarn to do something with, I want to know how much yarn I need. If I have no idea what I'll use it for, I'm probably not going to buy it. (There are exceptions to this, but not a lot of them. Don't ask me about alpaca, I'm not admitting anything here.)

The problem with sock yarn is that there's never any question as to what it's for, or how much I'll need. I'm going to make socks with it, and I probably need two balls, skeins, or whatever it comes in, unless it's a big skein and then I need one. I fear that eventually I'll be up to my butt in sock yarn here because if I see it in a color I like, I buy it. Less than $30 for something I know I'll use eventually is more than I can resist.

Meanwhile, I finally got Arwen really started, and I'll be starting the first sleeve in the next couple of days. I have one Earl Grey sock all the way up to the toe decrease, so it's probably going to get finished tonight and I'll cast on the next one immediately to avoid the dreaded second sock syndrome. I also got an email about the fate of the Purple Tank Top of Doom. M reportedly likes it, and it all fits except for the straps, which her mother is just going to sew shorter.

I fought the shawl

And right now, we're at a draw. I started Muir yesterday, and I can now confidently say that I can do a provisional crochet cast-on. In fact, I've now done it four times. Every time I thought I had things working, I'd discover little problems like too few stitches at the end of the first pattern row, and I'd end up starting over. I have so many stitch markers in this sucker it's a wonder I can see my stitches.

So I needed something else, something for when I need mindless knitting. I have the yarn for Twinkletoes and for Hedera, but I found out this morning that I didn't have size 1 or size 6 dpns. I went to the close LYS (which shall still remain nameless) and the service was wonderful, even though they didn't have what I needed, but the other customers still looked at me like something the cat dragged in. The woman who helped me was really cool, though, and it occurs to me that both of my really good experiences there have had her in common. I'm going to try to figure out when she's there and when there is not an afternoon class going on, and see if I have a really good experience. I don't want to do the people taking the classes out of their class time, but if the only person there waiting on people also appears to be teaching the class, and the class is in the middle of the store in the middle of the afternoon for two hours, well, there's a natural conflict of interest there between the class and customers. At any rate, maybe everyone won't hate me for being there if I can just figure out when would be a good time to go.

I ended up at Woolie Ewe again for the needles because I still needed them. I was good, and only bought needles.

I'm wondering if my head will stop hurting when I get my bar pass results. It's hurt every day for nearly a week, ever since they started painting the damned McMansion across the alley, so I think it's partly paint allergy and partly stress.

Local Yarn Store Comparisons

I had a much better time at the Woolie Ewe than I expected to yesterday. I need to quit thinking that Plano is a long way to drive for yarn, because really if I want to go to a store with a really friendly staff and a good selection, it's where I should go. The Other Yarn Store (which shall remain nameless here) has semi-friendly staff most of the time, but they also have terrible hours, almost no sock yarn, and the other customers are generally unfriendly. It's not that I expect to make a new best friend every time I go into a store, but the Ewe seems to attract people who are happy and enthusiastic about knitting and yarn and who smile and chat with other people who feel the same, and that Other Place seems to attract a bunch of old biddies who stare at me like I'm something the cat dragged in.

When I bought my real Knitting Bag, the one with the frame, the other customers at WE saw me wandering around with a staff member as I bought tools and stuff to put in the bag, and I was greeted all over the store with, "Yay! A new bag! A new knitter!" This Other Place, if I'd bought the same, they would have looked at me as though they were afraid I'd take my expensive new bag and tools and sit by them and contaminate their projects with noob-ness.

Anyway, I had a good time yesterday at the Ewe, and I spent about an hour fondling yarn and making new friends. I bought a really cool present that wasn't a gift certificate for my friend (I don't think she'll see this but I'm keeping quiet anyway), and I bought myself some really pretty bottle green laceweight to make the Muir shawl in this season's Knitty. I also mentioned that I'm in the Woolie Ewe group on Ravelry and I got my 10% discount and a Woolie Ewe bag.

We watched Black Snake Moan last night, and I got all the way into the toe increase for the striped socks. I think I can finish them this afternoon if I just settle down with them for an hour. I'm also going to force myself to get the purple tank top finished this weekend before I'll cast on the laceweight. I've promised my DH that the next set of socks is for him, so I hope my Knitpicks order gets here soon because I have teal sock yarn that I could make lace socks for myself with, too. I think I'm developing a sock problem of some sort.

In other news, the countdown is on. As of yesterday, one week to bar results. I'm starting to feel sick as well as paralyzed and unmotivated.

Later: The striped socks are finished!

Friday Field Trip Planning

I'm going to a birthday party tomorrow night, so I need to go to the Woolie Ewe to get a gift certificate for a present. This has the added advantage of getting to go to the Woolie Ewe. My stash is pathetically underweight, and it's being pushed around by everyone else's stash. We're not gonna take it anymore. Of course, there's the risk that I'll have a terrible financial accident at the alpaca shelf if I go alone, but I might just have to face that peril.

I've noticed that all the pictures I've posted to Ravelry on the Flikr account are really dark. I know I sort of spend my computer and study time in a dark little hole of a room, but you'd think flash photography would be able to get around that. I think I need to spend more time in the room with the skylight. Or maybe I really just need to leave the house more.

The striped socks sort of progress apace, but for some reason I've discovered that every time I knit with anything Lion Brand I aggravate my hand problems. I'm sure it's my inner yarn snob causing this. Meanwhile, I knit all the way through Countdown last night (Daily Show is in vacation mode) and I still haven't finished these dratted socks.

I need to get onto the purple tank top and just finish it. It's going to take about an hour, and then I'd be done. Why can't I just do it?

Speaking of things I can't seem to just do, add cleaning my office room. I cleared things away after I took the bar, and the desk is under about a foot of crap again. I need to clear bookshelves to box useful stuff up to take to my actual office when it's ready. I need to find my desktop. I can't get started. The closer I get to grade release, the less I want to do in here. I'm having school nightmares again, too. I just want to know whether I'm holing back up in here and studying for another two months or signing a contract on office space and getting down with the painting and planning.