Subterfuge

Dave and I have an unspoken truce about my yarn consumption. Sort of a "don't ask, don't tell" kind of thing. If he doesn't see it, it doesn't exist. And he doesn't read my blog. It's a knitting blog (theoretically) and he isn't interested in my knitting, so...

So yesterday when I took part in the infamous South Denver Yarn Crawl of '07, I knew he'd be home before me so I gave my purchases to My Blogless Rachel H. to hold for me overnight. All of them. What was I THINKing?

I'm completely feening for my new stuff. I want to cast it ALL on immediately! I scored some small discounts for us and I got some Jitterbug and some SWTC Bamboo. Some Cotton Fleece and one large and two small skeins of hand-dyed sock yarn. Oh and some Cadenza. And some tweedy teal colored yarn. (I'd been squirreling money away here and there so I could get a much needed haircut and color. My last one was in January. My next one won't be anytime soon!)

The last two were purchased at String. The owner had a baby boy, so anything blue (or with a speck of blue in it) is half off!! The sale goes through this Saturday. And they have an enormous table of yarn in the back room that is also all half off. I was walking around with my arms full of the tweedy teal yarn, feeling (and looking, I'm sure) rather shell-shocked.

And the company I kept yesterday! Too much fun! I picked up La in the hoopty van.

That's my almost-80-year-old FIL (and D2) with his new van. Notice the license plate?

My inlaws wanted to take the 4 year old to the museum to see some animals and there's no place in their van for a car seat. So they took the minivan and I had the hoopty. I told La that I brought our Yarn Transport and that we were to fill the back of it, full. The other knitters immediately took to calling it the pumpkin. As we drove from shop to shop, they kept saying, "We'll just follow the pumpkin." And I had to keep reminding them that I'm new here and don't know where anything is!

We met up with Imbrium, Nake-id Knits, and Yarn Thing at Knitty Cat. Nobody found anything they wanted there. It's a sweet yet small shop that was somewhat lacking in the organization of yarn department. Plus it was our first stop and there was some talk about pacing ourselves.

We caravaned to A Knitted Peace. Wow. What a beautiful, well-organized, helpful place! They offered coffee and showed us around. La discovered that they had a good selection of the Barbara Walker Treasury books and all three of the First Treasury were snapped up immediately. (One may've fell into my basket, I don't know.) Purchases were tossed into baskets and restraint was summarily kicked out the door.

A Knitted Peace has this yarn. The proprietor said she believed they were the only shop to carry it in the US. But she wasn't sure.

We went to a much needed lunch after this. We were eating at Chammps and My Blogless Rachel H. was to meet us there. She called before we left A Knitted Peace and said, "I think I'm at the wrong place." Marly gave her directions to the eatery and we met up there.

We were a rowdy bunch! We were laughing our asses off. Risque subjects were not only broached but thoroughly explored. Not much talk of knitting there!

Feeling replenished (and maybe a bit tipsy), we saddled up and moved on to the next store. It was Colorful Yarns. A small but lovely shop! The owner does a special thing if you're doing something special too (say, a loud, overly gleeful yarn crawl). Call and let her know in advance and not only does she provide a small, useful discount, she makes treats! She had homemade brownies and delicious ginger cookies (also made by the owner) and some sodas to refresh throats grown raw with laughter and dry with dropped jaws agog at the sensory overload that comes with visiting multiple yarn shops.

At Colorful Yarns we were joined by the incomparable Miss Wanda. She and Nake-id Knits were the models of restraint. A testament to forbearance. A fine example to us all of self-discipline. An example that was resoundingly... ignored. By us all. Except to note that they weren't making many purchases and what was wrong with them anyway?? (Just kiddin')

We ended our crawl at String. I already mentioned my String follies at the beginning of this post. There's also a very beautiful bead store two doors down. Hugs were given (they weren't strangers to me, so I was OK). Unsuspecting bead boys

were commandeered to take pictures.

And we all went home. At least we tried to. The hoopty needed a jump and Imbrium was kind enough to give us one. Rachel lives around the corner for me so she led the way home (and halfway there, when she got behind us to go throught the toll booth, let me know I had no taillights! That's what all the smoke was about after our battery jump!) She stayed behind us the rest of the way, giving directions by phone. We got La and ourselves home safe and sound and last night I dreamed of Koigu.

Missing my new stuff, Ruth!