Joey and I were looking for some sort of adventure to have yesterday, so I decided to look for yarn stores online. I came upon one in downtown Matthews, so we decided to venture out since it would be near PetsMart and we needed to pick up a thing or two for Shelli.

I should have known I was in trouble from the minute I stepped into the store (first of all, a very nice woman opened the door for me, so I was sucked in from the start). I was in awe of the vast amounts of yarn, and not the “Red Heart” yarn that you find at Wal-Mart and the craft stores, but good, expensive natural fibers, hand-sput and hand-dyed. One of the staff there asked me if I knitted and I told her that I’d been crocheting for the past twelve years, but recently picked up knitting. I didn’t get nearly the “stink vibe” that I was led to believe I would from LYS employees to allegedly see crochet as a lesser art.

I wandered the displays, feeling the fibers and falling in love with the different textures and colors. I especially fell in love with the merino sock yarn that was hand-dyed…but it was $23 per hank. Joey convinced me to go ahead and buy it, thus bringing me to part 1 of my new stash additions:

Then, we happened upon some Peruvian wool which was so soft to the touch that you would never think it was the typical, oft-rued itchy, prickly wool. I bought two hanks of that for a scarf for Joey, one in a lovely beige:

And the other in a dark green with blue, earthy flecks throughout.

I also picked up the Reader’s Digest Knitters Handbook, which right now is much too complicated, but I’m sure will come in very handy later when I’m a bit more skilled at knitting.

After being invited to every yarn event that they offer and watching the magical ball-winder, we left with my spoils in tow and headed to Michaels for some double-pointed needles for sock-making (the needles at the yarn store were too expensive). I was able to get some with a gift card, and we found skeins of 100% merino wool for $3.99, and also found out that next Sunday is a “four hour madness” sale where everything will be 25% off, so we’ll definitely be heading back to get some of that next Sunday.

I spent the evening crocheting to burn through some of my stash and decided that I was going to focus on making granny squares with the “baby appropriate” yarn so that I’ll always have some ready to make my signature patchwork quilt when a friend is expecting. I made four typical granny squares in white (photo to be posted later)

And then made a burgundy one with the “circle in square” pattern:

Then, I tried the trellis pattern, only to be sorely disappointed because I didn’t keep my stitches even and it narrowed a lot at the top.

But for my first try, I wasn’t terribly disappointed.

So, this afternoon, I picked through my stash and pulled out some of the scratchy, uncomfortable acrylic yarn to donate to the children’s department at church because they always have need for different-colored hair, etc. Now, my stash has only yarn that I intend to use for something or another. I learned how to increase and decrease stitches today, which was frustrating (I still haven’t figured out one of the methods for increasing), and I’m wanting to start a hat to go with a scarf I made for Joey a long time ago, so maybe I’ll get up the motivation to give that a try before the night is over!