Weekend

I feel as if I've been driving forever.

Weekend went like this:

Friday, got off work, went to check on automat76 and her latest back calamity. We tried to go eat at Whole World, but as usual, it was busy and understaffed, so we went to the Dube, where umama and D walked in three minutes later. So we had dinner with them, then they went on to see F9/11 (which we saw last week) and we went to run errands. I'm sad because I left my favorite black
cardigan at Studio 35 last weekend, and it wasn't there when I went back to check on it. We rented Calendar Girls then and watched it -- it was much better than I
expected and not really cheesy at all. And I've decided, I want to be Helen Mirren
when I grow up.

Saturday, got up a bit late, then took off for Cleveland. Between a torrential downpour outside Delaware, and a total stop on I-71 near Akron, I got there only 1/2
an hour late. Had told K, my college roommate to meet me outside Nordstrom at Tower
City Mall. Only one problem: Nordstrom is at Beechwood. Oops. We eventually found
each other, had lunch and coffee and wandered around for a few hours. Then I went out
to meet my sister at her place, which is about 45 minutes from downtown. We went to
dinner at the Willoughby Brewing Company, where I had the best meal I've had in ages.

I was expecting bar food when we went in, but it was actually kind of an "upscale"
menu. We both got the same thing: Macadamia nut and breadcrumb encrusted halibut, on
top of chickpeas stewed in a yogurt sauce and steamed asparagus. It was soooooo good,
and so large, and I was halfway home Sunday before I remembered my leftovers in her
fridge. Damn.

We went to a bar after that where her fiance's roommate is a barback and had a couple beers. I find bars in stripmalls odd -- I'm spoiled here in the Sho'No. Then it was
back to her apartment, and slumber. She had to work at noon Sunday, so we putzed
around in the morning. I had a tiny headache, but didn't think to take anything. I
went on to Beechwood, to go to Sephora (where I had a little Stila buying spree.) I also found a cherry pitter at a kitchen gadget store -- I've been looking for one for a while.

Then I went in search of the one yarn shop on my list (I didn't get to any Saturday) that was open on Sunday. This place was incredible. It's called Fine Points and is in Shaker Heights. It's in a two story Victorian home. It's similar to the LYS I go to here in C-bus (Wolfe Fiber Arts) except for one thing: at Wolfe, if a yarn comes in 10 colors, and they have 10 balls of each, all 100 balls are on display. Here, they put out one or two of each color out and you ask them how much else they have, but there is still just as much yarn on display, if not more. They had nearly everything! And they told me they'll ship, so if there's ever anything I need and can't find down here, I can call them up. Pretty cool. I restrained myself and got just two things: 2 hanks of Naturwolle in orange with a slight olive stripe twisted in, and three balls of Bamboo silk in green, teal and blue. I'll post photos later, 'cause it's pretty stuff.

Then it was homeward. I had to stop at Lodi to buy some excedrin. I had everything in the way of drugs with me except that, and I can't drive on Imitrex. So I popped those, and decided not to hit the outlets. Ended up stopping 10 minutes later at a rest area to close my eyes for about 10 minutes, then decided I was better off on the road than being paranoid about whether people were watching me sleep. Headache went away enough that I felt safe driving again in a few minutes.

Got home, and slept a bit. Just realized that I never really ate dinner last night, just a peanut buster parfait at Dairy Queen. Oh well. I will live.

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I was just trying to determine what to do for lunch, so I went to our Intranet and looked at our cafeteria menu. Today's grill special is listed as:

Shipwreck on A Bun!
$2.95


Um...I think I'll be going out today.

Yarn!

I think I've just realized I'm crazy, because I have more yarn that I could knit up in a year or two. I think it's time to stop, trade, etc.

Here's the ( bamboo yarn )

and ( the wool )

I bought this weekend.

There are more stash photos and a couple of my in progress projects here. Now I'll be able to look up what I have when I'm out looking for patterns!

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Almost forgot--I think I might have a use already for the bamboo yarn. I saw a poncho in Kaufmann's today that I like a lot, and that I could wear to work this fall too. It was styled like a sweater, with shoulder shaping and a ribbed neckline. Kind of like a capelet, but with one off center button to close it at the neck. Had side seams, and bottom and front center edging. I made a sketch at work this afternoon -- maybe I'll scan that in later and head over to knitting for help.

I *think* after attempting a sweater with sleeves (which is next on the list after a couple of projects I have on needles now -- I'm doing Rosedale United from knitty, in ( this yarn )

.) I might be able to tackle designing this pattern myself, especially if I knit it as one piece rather than with the side seams. And I think the bamboo yarn would be pretty for this, if I'm willing to risk such pricey, pretty stuff on something so experimental. Eeek.

Almost finished!

OK, I got inspired to actually knit after realizing how much yarn is in my house, so I finished knitting up the second stripey slipper from Knit One, Purl Too. Seen in progress here. Now, I just have to weave in all those ends, which is half done on the first one, and felt them like crazy. Then I'll have oh so warm wool slippers.

Just in time to wear in August?

I'm going to see if I can salvage the Lana D'oro shawl progress before I go to sleep. I restarted it for the seventh time last night, but I think I may have done SK2P instead of SSK in a couple of places. That's what I get for doing too many patterns at once.