Allow me to suggest...

Thanks for all your compliments about my Branching Out Scarf. I just discovered that I can't work on it while at the ice arena waiting for a game to start. Having to refer to a pattern and not having anyplace to put it other than on the bench next to me gave me a stiff neck. But since I have a couple of other WIPs in my knitting bag, I just picked up one of my other scarves where I have the pattern memorized.

I mentioned in my last post that I had an interesting shopping experience. I found this store on one of my infamous internet queries. What intrigued me was when I moved the mouse over the "K" just to the left of the "X", I saw the words Lornas Laces. Not available at my LYS or any store I've happened upon. Everyone writes about it, needed to touch it. I called the owner Jody to see if she was open on a Saturday, and she said she was but was difficult to find. I also asked her if she was open on Sunday in case I decided to go by then and she said she was but only by appointment to locals. I told her I was traveling and wasn't planning to spend enough money to make it worth her while for her to come in and open her store on a day off. She said not a problem and that she could promise to be there till about 3:00pm. I just couldn't do that to someone though with how little I planned on spending. Through a circuitous (more about this later because you all want to know about this yarn store) route we finally arrived at knit2purl2.com.

My friends this is not a store front. This is a dot com and Jody warmly welcomed five unknown women into her very comfortably beautiful home and showed us to her brightly lit basement room where she had shelves and shelves of beautiful yarns packaged in clear plastic bags. For my three friends who were not into yarn they went back outside and enjoyed the beautiful scenery, my fourth friend is a knitter and stayed in the company of the fiber. Jody explained to us that she is a dot com and that's why she is open by appointment only. Because of how I located her on the internet I just assumed this was a retail establishment. I told Jody that I was interested in the Lornas Laces and she showed us her supply. Wow. Then I saw some wool that turned out to be Malabrigo. Again something I hadn't touched but had wanted to. Jody took some out of the bag and oh my goodness, this is soft. For me it is much softer than Manos. In the end I came home with a skein of Lornas Laces in the Georgetown colorway for a narrow scarf for the summer. My office gets too cold in the summer from the air conditioning. (I told myself no more sock yarn until I use some of my stash up, but I knew if I found some Lornas Laces I would pick some up, and it's for a scarf so that's OK) I think her prices are very reasonable. If there is something I need and can't find it locally, this will be my first internet stop.

On to the explanation of circuitous route. This weekend had three of my friends staying at my hotel while MFB stayed with the hockey team at their hotel. One of my other friends also stayed at the team hotel. On the way to the team hotel, I discovered I missed a turn when staring me right in the face was a sign that said "Welcome to Maryland". Now I don't have anything against Maryland, it's not like it is Rhode Island or anything. But still. We made it to the team hotel picked up our other friend and headed out for the day. On our way to the yarn store I started doubting we were on the right road just moments before the sign saying "Welcome to Pennsylvania" showed up on the roadside. Granted Newark DE is only a few miles from either PA or MD. Heavy Sigh. This is not the first time I have steered these friends wrong. It happened last March in Westchester. I'm not usually directionally challenged; I was a cop after all. My friends and I think that what happened was when I input the starting name of the road we were on the dreaded G##g!% software which changed Way to Drive and thus showed us as about 11 miles south of where we truly were. Two of my friends had that happen to them when they printed out directions the week before to the hotel. As it turns out knit2purl2.com was less than 2 miles away from my hotel. Can I pick 'em or what?