Perfection & Stepford-ville

Yes. I had a whole 20 minutes with the house to myself yesterday. Wow! That was sweet! Everyone left the house to go get pizza and I was working away at some mindless task in the kitchen. I wandered off to pre-heat the oven and sat down to knit instead. There was a fire in the fireplace, it was raining outside, the cats were sleeping in their baskets and there was not a sound to be heard inside the house except for the clicking of my needles. I'm sure all of you have had those moments of pure bliss. You know, when you think "it doesn't get much more perfect than this, I'd better enjoy it while it lasts." Maybe that is what makes it perfect, the fact that it is rare and the knowledge that it won't last long. I'm good with that. I could have used more than 20 minutes of it, but more than an hour would have been too much for me with all the mom-guilt or stuff-needing-to-be-done guilt. Still, it was perfect.

I got the camera issue sorted. Or, I have a work-around sorted. Since my camera is older, they may never update the driver to make it compatable with the newest software, but at least I can still get to it. So now you can see the progress on the Knucks 2. DH has decided the fingers are a bit too long for his liking. I have to admit, they are too long. I don't want to rip the whole darned thing out though, I want them finished! So I'm thinking maybe I can just hem them? I just don't know what to do here. It was, perhaps in payment for the perfect knitting moment, a frustrating weekend in many fiber respects.

My balls o' yarn were falling apart, so I decided to wind them. My 4 y.o. decided to help me. We've done it before, it isn't that hard, right? Uh-huh. In her rush to help, she bent the metal yarn guide thingy on the winder. In my rush to fix it, I broke it off. Team effort, gotta love it! I tried winding a ball using my hand as a guide. Um, no. That didn't work so well, so I had to go get a new one. I called around and the only shop close to me that had one was a new LYS I hadn't been to yet. That should be cool, right? I haven't gone because I've been trying not to buy yarn and I don't like to go to new places and not buy stuff (especially if they are a small shop). Well, here was a legitimate need and I told myself I could have new yarn IF something really hit me over the head. (Like that would be hard).

Okay, so not only was this shop incredibly hard to find, it was in Stepford-ville. I rarely ever get lost, but I spent 25 minutes looking for this place. No joke. Okay, maybe I should have printed the directions before leaving the house, but I don't usually need to do that once I've looked at them. Okay, maybe I should have looked at them before I left the house instead of relying on a two week old memory of the directions, but still, I've done it before with no problems. At least I had my DH near the computer to look things up for me once I was well and truly flummoxed. Even so, I still missed the turn and had a slight anxiety attack looking for the shop.

Stepford-ville. Maybe you've been there, or maybe you even live there right now, I don't know, but it freaked me out on some level. Have you seen the new (at least it is new here, maybe it is old school where you are) building trend that incorporates shops into an apartment community? We sometimes shop for groceries in a place sort of like this, except the shops are all seperate and a littler center with the apartments all together and a bit further from the shops (adjacent & easy to walk, right?). I'm good with this setup, it works for me.

This place I went to had the shops built into the bottom level of the apartment buildings and there was like a park area with the aparment club house, oops! I mean Community Center in the Village Square. There was a big clock tower in the park as well. And no people. Seriously. There were cars and restaurants and delis and shops and no people. I felt like I was entering a Really Bad Movie, the kind where only bits and pieces of them are ever found. The shop was nice and very, very small (they are moving to a larger space soon - across the square), cozy even, but I could not get over the creeped out feeling. They had a nice, but small, selection of yarn. The ladies were very nice (and not creepy) and invited me to their open knit night in the Community Center, but I really don't know if I could go back there again. At least not sober, which means someone else would have to drive, which means I'd be putting someone else in danger in Stepford-ville and I'm not sure I should shop for yarn while tanked. Probably not. It was just weird. I'm sure it is incredibly convenient for the folks who live in these communities, to have shops so close and all, and perhaps a good use of the ground floor space, but, it really creeped me out.

I bought my wool winder and some Mountain Colors Barefoot yarn in Obsidian. Jinkies! That stuff is SO SOFT! Yes, I did not need any more sock yarn. Yes, I bought it anyway. Very pretty & you know, support the LYS. Also, I was trying to make myself feel better after having so much trouble finding the place and being all creeped out. That's my story & I'm sticking to it!



Lastly, I have a photo of a bobbin of my first attempt at merino top that I've been spinning. It is still a single, and there's a nice blob of pre-drafted fiber next to it. This colorway is Northern Lights. It is pretty, if not quite what I was expecting. I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens with it when I ply it. I still have not decided if I will have a 2-ply or a 3-ply.