Such a pleasant weekend …

I spent a pleasant weekend with friends hanging around, relaxing. It was lovely. I’m pretty sure winter is over, because the last few weekends have been really nice - it’s in the seventies, with clear skies. Beautiful weather.

Yesterday a couple of friends and I visited our local gourmet liquor store, Grapevine Market, which was having a big Valentine’s event benefiting the SPCA. Raffle, silent auction, wine tasting, puppies out front needing homes … The store itself was doing the tasting event, and it’s not every day when you happen upon a tasting that huge - 5 kinds of champagne, strawberry cocktails, several wines, port, sherry, madeira, chocolate, cheese … a great way to get tipsy for free. Then again, “free” is relative as they were quite successful in selling me stuff I didn’t need. My friend and I bid on a winery tour in the silent auction. I hope we won, that would be fun!

Today was more hanging out … went to Hill Country Weavers and Jo’s Coffee. Hill Country is the undisputed grandaddy of yarn shops around these parts. I’ve never been there before. I rarely go to small, independent yarn shops. The yarn is beautiful, yes. Lots of expertise, awesome. Great pattern books, nice. Good classes, absolutely. And yeah, I’ll go to one every once in a while for special projects.

Mostly though, I’m afraid of what I’ll walk out with and how much of my pocketbook I’ll be parting with. I don’t feel the need to build a huge stash. It would really weigh on me to know I’d spent a lot on yarn I didn’t use. I just want what I need for immediate projects, stuff I know I’ll like and use. Plus, I caught myself musing on about a $49 skein of yarn. Ow.

Also, I kind of hate explaining my yarn quirks. I’m unintentionally in a small camp in that I (1) don’t knit at all or even want to knit and (2) am allergic to wool, all wool, yes even alpaca and mohair, and blends don’t help solve the problem. I do not want hives. The yarn world is full of wool-knitters, and I am not in that group.

Nevertheless, I can tell right now that I will be walking out with some linen yarn before too long, as soon as I find a pattern I can agree with. I’m not quite sure what kind of crochet pattern would work for linen’s particular drape and texture. I’d like a drapey kind of wrap. I found some great linen yarn that’s new, it still has the sort of rough-ish texture of linen, but is softer than other types I’ve seen.

Meanwhile, I’ve been hard at work on my blanket. I have all the flower centers done, plus 6.5 brown squares and 10 flowered squares. My husband and I have also been hard at work on another Crafter-by-Night project as well, which should be done quite soon. Whee!