The Walls of Jericho

It appears that I've been ignoring you. But it only appears that way. Rest assured you have been on my mind. I have been busy knitting up a small storm. These are some of the things that have come off the needles recently. Yes, just some, there are one or two (maybe three) things that are not here.

The fabulous Melissa arranged for our group to go to Close Knit - a LYS in Evanston and we were there for a few hours. It is a small shop - the smallest we've frequented but the owner, Lucy, was great. She went around the table helping the folks who needed help with their projects. We've already got another date to go back there.

Two things I discovered:

I need to add another exception to the yarn moratorium. The first reason, you recall, is when I need to get filler yarn to complete a project. The second reason is when a shop owner does a very nice thing like host a group of knitters in her shop and keeps the shop open a little longer - including the cash register for people to make their purchases - we should, indeed, make a purchase. After all, when we meet at Borders and Tamale Hut Cafe, I ask people to make a purchase there so we just aren't taking up space. The same holds true for LYS, especially since when we are being hosted we take up a lot of room other customers could occupy. Which explains the three balls of yarn I purchased yesterday.

Second, there are two things some LYS do that really bugs me: a very small clearance sale stock (which the store yesterday had but it's understandable there because the shop is very small, but there are others that just have a small basket in a big ass shop- c'mon now.) AND those shops that refuse to wind sale items. As if my purchasing the yarn they put on sale is somehow insulting and not in need of winding. They put it on sale for whatever reason they wanted - wind the damn thing up. (That was not an issue yesterday. My skeins are ready to go.)

Melissa asked if I was ready to go for the show the first week of December and I said I thought I was. She asked how many afghans I had ready and I said six, but I think I have five. She wanted to know how many items I had. i said about 40. I was much better than last year when I had more than double that amount because I wanted to make sure we had stock. This year, we don't have as many artists contributing so of course, I have less. I also noted that yesterday marked the two week blitz but this afternoon no blitz has started. I do have an afghan square on the needles - Beth attended yesterday and brought me squares she's been holding on to for a couple of years when she attended the Sit and Knit!! A great start to 2011!

I may be able to knock the monochrome afghan out by the time the show rolls around but I'm not in a rush....

Is this calm attitude worrying anyone else but me?