Saturday and Stash Enhancement

Since I blew it last weekend, I'm going to start with today's Saturday Sky:



Since quitting my job and going back to school my days are sometimes out of sync - weekdays or weekends it's all the same to me. Some days have cruise ships in port and people on the streets, and some days don't. I rely on little things to connect me to the actual day of the week, like when the trash cans need to be put out, or my cart moved to avoid getting ticketed, or the need to point my camera up at the sky and take a decent shot!

As days go, today was really top of the line. I slept in a little late, did some knitting, studying, and got all my little errands & chores done. I went for a long walk with a friend I don't get see often enough followed by a drink and a bite to eat with another friend. Now I get to end the day sprawled out on the couch with my laptop, a fluffy kitty, and pretty yarn. Do I need more than this?

Oh, and about the pretty yarn? Well for starters when I was overtown on Thursday I sorta fell off the wagon. I had time to kill before my exam and the testing center was in Gardena, so I planned to check out a local yarn shop I had heard of from Ellen Bloom. I arrived at Let's Knit on Western Avenue just as they were opening and had the place to myself for most of the time I was there. It was ummmm....interesting. I've never been to a yarn shop where so much of the stock was bagged up in plastic. It was really hard for me to get the "thrill" that I'm looking for when I visit mainland yarn shops. You know, the ability to move from shelf to shelf and bin to bin - touching, fingering, fondling, squeezing all the different fibers. 'Cause, hey - if all I wanted to do was look - I can stay home and flip through catalogs and magazines, right?

But I also don't believe in judging a book by it's cover, or a shop by your initial walk-in impression. I spent a little time poking around in all the corners and finally, stuffed towards the back of a bottom shelf behind a table I found this:




Yes, indeedy. Classic Elite Inca Alpaca. At a dollar or two less than I've seen it elsewhere. (Yes, I've been jonesing for this stuff for a while now and stalking it for sales.) I actually called someone on my cell, to see if they could throw a verbal lasso over my credit card, but I was completely out of luck. (Fiendish enablers!)

Then today I finally went and picked up my mail and was excited to find a package from tienne knits:



I entered a contest on her blog in mid-December and was one of 25 lucky peeps to win some yarn! She asked us include a brief mention of what sort of colors we preferred and as I recall I told her I'd take the scary bright extreme color combo that no one else wanted because I wasn't afraid of bright colors. (And she totally took me at my word - thanks tiennie!) So she sent me Spunky Eclectic's October sock yarn club colorway - "Goblin Eyes". It's a handpainted superwash BFL made up of purples, golds, and greens and I love it madly. Wouldn't you?