Week 26 - Good Yarn Mojo

It was a relatively normal week but when I look back at it, knitting seems to have been the trend. What else is new, you ask? Hmmm….

Having scored so much good quality yarn at Goodwill on the previous Friday, I decided to hit all the other Goodwills on Monday. I went way south at lunch and then hit the downtown one – nothing. On the way home, I went to the last one. Again, nothing. So much for my theory that the central warehouse was sitting on a huge stash. I knitted at the library on Monday night, as usual, and did show and tell of my newly dyed yarn, which I’m still loving.

Having failed at Goodwill (well, I did get 2 skeins of Husker Red 100% cotton for dishcloths), I got an email Tuesday that I had won a drawing on Ravelry and had a $30 gift certificate for Blue Moon Fiber Arts, home of Socks That Rock yarn. How fun! There were a gazillion colors to choose from but I ordered a beautiful one. Free, gorgeous yarn – what’s not to love? I knitted with Anne at the Union over lunch on Wednesday and she helped me find the middle of my leftover yarn from Darla’s hat that I’m making mittens out of. Picture two women, perched at a small table with yarn everywhere as we unraveled the remaining yarn, put a knot at the middle and rewound it. It’s good to have yarn buddies. After the pool that night, we met up with the Village Inn gang and knitted some more. Unfortunately they hadn’t gotten my email that we were coming so there were nine of us crammed around a round table for six and none of them brought knitting. It was good to see them again though, having not seen them since before Easter.

The days flew by and the weekend arrived in a flash. I managed to mow and mulch between my veggie beds on Friday night, having been thwarted by what seemed like constant rain. Every storm just makes me cringe, knowing what’s good for my garden is adding to the flooding along the Missouri. Anyway, with the gardening done and no plans for the weekend, I made a chore list, which included breaking out my cleaning supplies and vacuum for the first time in years because my interim cleaning lady was a no show on Friday night (not her fault but the fault of my heavily medicated, recuperating cleaning lady who forgot to call her.) After cleaning the entire house on Saturday (as much as I was willing to do anyway), I decided to reward myself with my first ever kool aid dying.

I broke out my packets, deciding on pina pineapple (yellow) for one end and soarin’ strawberry lemonade (pink) for the other, figuring that the two colors would suck up to the center and create orange. So I put the two ends in the bowls and no sucking occurred! I had a bright yellow end, a melon-y peach end and white in the middle. Back to the cupboard and I found a packet of ice blue raspberry lemonade (bright blue), which I stuck the middle in and promptly got green, blue and purple. I had created a rainbow on my yarn with every color except the orange I was trying for. I put the yarn in the oven to set and sat down to knit, my whole house smelling like wet sheep. I had time to kill while the yarn cooled, after which it had to be rinsed and hung to dry, so sat down to knit. Sitting was clearly going to be a trend.

Despite my big list of chores, I spent most of the rest of the weekend knitting and ignoring my to do list. I ripped out my colorwork mittens again and interspersed reknitting them between the chores and by the end of the weekend was almost done with one mitten. This may not sound like much but we’re talking tiny needles, equally tiny stitches holding two strands of yarn and following a chart for every stitch. Trust me, this is an accomplishment. Anyway, it’s a good thing I’m happy with my knitting progress because I ended the night Sunday with very few things crossed off my list. I’m calling it good though. Every once in awhile I need a slow, lazy weekend. At least I have knitting and yarn to show for it. I could have been sitting like a zombie. Good thing next weekend’s a long one because I have lots to prep for my 3rd annual Fourth of July Cookout. Yikes! I’m feeling pressure already. Breathing now……

P.S. Here’s something funny from this past week that I can’t resist sharing…. Polly and I were heading toward a picnic table to eat our lunch on Thursday when we saw a man walking with his ~ 3 year old son and dog. When we approached the table, the little boy waved a baby carrot and said, “I got this carrot from that man (pointing to man at the next table.) Carrots make my poop fluffy.” And he walked away.