Week 28 - Yarny and Productive

What a fun week! What’s not to like about a week that starts and ends with yarn, includes new, cheap Birkenstocks, has plenty of productivity and ends with the polar vortex dropping temps to gorgeous levels? NOTHING.

Monday was our monster sock night at knitting. Monster socks, which are SO fun to knit, are socks made from leftover yarn. There are all kinds of ways to make them and they appeal to my favorite thing – using stuff up. So we all brought our scraps to knitting, threw them into the middle of the table and started matching things up. I had a ball! I couldn’t stop putting together color combinations and said, “Look at that!” so many times that they were ribbing me. Everyone left with beautiful yarn combinations and I left with way less than I brought – just enough for one pair. Worked for me! It’s not like I don’t have plenty more yarn, and leftovers, at home.

Another fun thing was the Birkenstock store’s annual sale on Thursday. I had gone too late last year and hadn’t found anything so I was determined to go earlier. It opens at 10:00 and that’s always a mob scene so I left work at 11:30, figuring I’d arrive before the lunch crowd. I got to the store and there was a line out the door, down the plaza and then back again. It was the line to pay! Inside the store wasn’t as crowded and I immediately found what I was looking for – purple summer sandals. Then I found a pair of Keen tie shoes for winter. Score! I went out to wait in line, which took 50 minutes but was fun because I chatted with the women on either side of me. Then when I got inside and could access the side of my size table that was blocked by the line, I found another pair of sandals – navy blue with a soft footbed. Nice. All told my lunch hour was almost 2 hours long but I scored 3 pairs of shoes for $221 ($70 each plus tax) so I was happy, happy, happy.

Otherwise, there was nothing special about the week, unless you count getting my summer short haircut, which always feels good. I did get quite a few things off my to do list but it all about getting to the weekend for me. I was heading down to the basement and looking forward to it.

I was down there Saturday morning right after breakfast and coffee. I had put the linen shelf back together on Friday night with real milk crates so it wouldn’t collapse so I was ready to organize those linens. It didn’t take long to load the shelf up but then I moved to the other wall, which was stacked with baskets that were a bit precarious and I was worried that I’d find pooled water under them. Nope! That was a relief. I restacked everything and by lunch time the room was in apple pie order. Even the table in the center was clear and there was nothing on the floor that wasn’t in a basket and where it needed to be. Now to deal with the other rooms but that would have to wait.

Andrea and I were headed to the grand opening of the newly relocation to Omaha yarn shop – Wooly Mammoth. A few of the knitting group had been there before and said there was a $5/skein sale bin full of fun stuff. I had hoped for a quick trip so I could be home in time for tea then get downstairs again before supper. Yeah, right. But it was worth it to include a few other stops. The first one was Omaha’s old yarn shop – Personal Threads. We were there for Koigu mill ends, which Heidi from knitting had bought to monster sock night, but I found a few other skeins I had to have. At least a couple were from the clearance rack. Then we hit Goodwill, where I dropped the bag that had been in my backseat for a week, and then Penzey’s, where I cashed in 3 coupons for free spices so at least something was frugal. Then it was on to Wooly Mammoth.

The $5 rack was full of fun stuff and I got some bargains. The best bargain though was some Regia Fluormania sock yarn in a day glow green colorway for just $3.95/skein! Of course I took one look and knew I could make it beautiful with kool aid. I bought 2 skeins and Jacob from spinning group, who we bumped into at the store, bought the rest. I did buy one skein of full price sock yarn but had so many deals that I left with a bag full of quality yarn for only $70. What fun! We didn’t get home until dinner time but I still had Sunday so was fine with our yarny afternoon.

I was back downstairs right after breakfast and got busy in the craft room.  Just moving the ebay linens back to the linen room made a big difference but then I started going through the baskets looking for summer clothes that had languished in the ironing basket since last fall. By lunchtime, I’d made a big dent and although I’d considered hosting knitting in the afternoon, I decided I’d rather keep going downstairs so ate a quick lunch and went back down. I sorted and sorted – sweaters for felting, yarn and already felted, immediate ironing (found those summer clothes) and ironing to wait, mending and fabric. Lots and lots of baskets but at least they’re organized and I freed up lots of floor space. There's another big bag for Goodwill and even the table is clear. I did lots of laundry and some actual ironing before going upstairs to clean up the kitchen. I had hoped to get some cooking done but ran out of time. I can eat out of the freezer this week if I must. It was all worth it to make such progress downstairs.

And mid afternoon, when I was upstairs taking a yarn dyeing break to fix a skein of the hideous day glow yarn with blue kool aid, my cell phone rang (always unusual) and it was Peggy from DocKnits calling to get my credit card info to book the fall retreat. So that’s official and Sue has me in a suite in the main B&B (there’s an overflow one too) with Cindy, Eileen and Gail so I’ll be back with all my Lakes and York trip friends knitting in Canada at the end of September. I also checked email to see I'd won some beautiful yarn from a blog contest. Yet more yarny goodness!

Good week, right? Not only did I have some yarny fun but I got the basement on the way to under control. To top it all off, I spent Sunday night watching PBS and stashing all my new yarn on Ravelry. And I ended the night by finishing a pair of problem socks that would have been done days earlier but for a mistake that left me ripping out 2/3rds of the 2^nd socks just before I’d thought I was done. And the best end to the week was the polar vortex that would be ushering in gorgeous, cool weather while I slept. Life is good!

And on that note, I meant to share this link. What a great post! Time to rethink my password practices. : )