real, live yarn in person and other ramblings

I've told y'all that I buy most of my yarn online. The selection is endless, I can hunt down bargains and I don't have to move my behind from my comfy bed/couch/chair to request that it be delivered to my mailbox. What a deal. But man, touching, squeezing and sniffing the stuff just cannot be accomplished through the screen.

I finally made my way to Eleganza Yarns over the weekend. We needed to go into Frederick to exchange one of Billiam's birthday gifts. On the way I casually mentioned that I would like to finally go to Eleganza to pick up some yarn for my sister's baby gift. I'm sly like that. And Billiam's theatrical "Woe is Me"about working a 6 1/2 day week and then spending his only free time in a yarn shop was much shorter than expected. Score one. Love you, honey.

I think the poor man behind the counter thought I was deranged when I walked in and immediately started grinning from ear to ear. Yarn is crack, I tell you. Crack. I ended up with some Rowan Calmer in a lovely pale pink and some Dale Heilo for Jake's replacement pirate hat and one more.

Oh, and I found out that they are planning to have another drop spindle class sometime soon. He said to look for more info in mid-February and that's almost here! Yea! Honey--if you're reading this--I will need to take that class. You know that beautiful, colorful fiber in that box in the kitchen that I ended up keeping when I realized it wouldn't fit into the Yarn Aboard box so I bought some other stuff to put in it, instead? That could be yarn!

Clara's hat will be finished tonight if I play Insomnia Girl in anticipation of Jake's flight tomorrow. If so, photos in the morning. There are a few things I would change around if I were doing it again, but for having made up all of the changes except for the skull part on the fly, I am pretty pleased.

Last, but not least, I won some note cards of The Blankie from Shelly over at Heathen Housewife. Woohoo! If you don't know what The Blankie is, head on over there and scroll down to February 2. It's knit from remnants of sock yarn. Gorgeous!

And, because I cannot possibly end this without a picture...