Yarn Hangover

I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of yarn shops all over the United States held their annual Superbowl sales yesterday and my favorite shop was certainly among them.

Like hundreds, if not thousands, of other women, I made sure I had at least one other errand I had to run and thus just sort of slipped the visit to the yarn store in with it. Hey! I had to get my prescription didn't I? I had to pick up that book case for the squatter's room from my friend too, didn't I? So I just sort of moseyed about 15 miles out of my way between the two errands just to check out the sale. I didn't bother to mention that to Dan...all he had to know was that there were errands to be done, right?

20 percent off is hard to resist and I had justification too! I was going to buy the yarn for Laurel's Pure & Simple Poncho: 9 skeins of Plymouth Encore Chunky in Royal Blue. I'd save a lot buying it at the sale, right? It is her turn for a sweater after the Squat's electric yellow Wallaby is done and I don't have enough yarn in the stash to do it. Yes, I do have chunky yarn, just not enough of one color! Or the right fiber...must be acrylic, since Laurel is notoriously hard on her clothing and I am notoriously lazy about hand washing. So you can see that I HAD to go to the sale, can't you? Yep, I could tell you'd understand!

So what happened? Why did I end up coming home with a bag of yarn, NONE of which was Plymouth Encore Chunky in Royal Blue?

I'm not sure, really. I do know that they did not have 9 skeins of Plymouth Encore Chunky in Royal Blue. They only had 4 skeins. So I will have to special order it. Rats.

So while I'm there, since I drove all that way, I look at yarn. It's 20 percent off and it's going to be a WHOLE YEAR before it is 20 percent off again! It wouldn't hurt to buy a little yarn, right?

Next thing I know I'm standing out on the sidewalk with a bag of yarn. I'm feeling slightly dizzy from the sensation of pulling out my credit card and watching them add yet more debt to it. I'm feeling even more dizzy at my actions. Here I had chosen 3 skeins of regular Plymouth Encore to do a Babies & Bears sweater for charity and I actually went back after I got in line at the register and added 3 more skeins by reasoning that it will be Emily's turn after Laurel's turn and she would love a Wallaby out of this yarn; it's so pretty! Why not buy it now so you can do her sweater after Laurel's poncho? It's 20 percent off, for Pete's sake!!!

The rest is just a blur. I now have a whole bag of yarn to be added to the stash, since none of it is for immediate consumption. Sigh...

So...you want to see what I got? You do, don't you?


6 skeins of Encore in this pretty variagation...isn't it pretty? Wouldn't a 9 year old girl love this? Yes, she will.







2 skeins of Berroco Foliage for a hat for me. I need a hat! I have a burgundy coat and this will coordinate, yet stand out. It's so soft!!!




3 skeins of sock yarn, each of which will make a pair of socks. Here is where it became a blur. I have sock yarn...I don't really need any more! What happened???

Oh, well. Sales are final, the receipt says. I can't take it back, so I guess I will just have to lump it.


On the fickleness of children

If anyone had told me when I had children, that it was the BOY who would end up being the pickiest one when it came to clothes, I would have thought they were off their rocker.

Alas...it is all too true. The Squatter is the boy who will not wear anything I pick out, at least not without a struggle.

The girls are fairly easy. When they were little, I just color coordinated what I bought. Laurel always got pink and Emily always got purple. Easy. Simple. Now, of course, that Laurel is a tweenager, she is heartily sick of pink. So my one stricture is to avoid the pink stuff for her, but otherwise, they always love whatever I pick out for them. I put it down to my exquisite taste; who wouldn't love what I pick out?

The Squat, that's who. AFTER I changed his sweater over to the Wonderful Wallaby pattern, I thought he agreed with me. Then he came up to me Saturday while I was knitting on his sweater.

"Is that my sweater?"

"Yes, this is it!"

"How did it look?" Here you have to understand that Mr. Bill's grasp of past, present and future tense is not too good yet, due to his speech delay. I understood he meant, "How is it going to look?"

"See, here is a picture. It will have a hood and if you like, I will put this pocket in the front. Isn't it neat?"

"Mom, I don't want a hood or a pocket. I just want a sweater."

Ooops. So it looks like I will be making major alterations to this sweater. I can leave the pocket off without any problem at all, but now I have to figure out how to put a different collar on it. Ah, the fickleness of children. But I've been knitting now for 13 years! I have confidence! I am the BOSS of my knitting! I can do it!

I think.....