A best friend will
Walk miles and miles at a craft show
Wait and wait for you to find just the right gift
And still smile at your crazy choice.

Living in Texas so far away from my family and old friends has taught me something. Good friends are hard to find. I have had lots of friends in my life. After all we’ve lived in Spain, England, Wales, Iceland, Cuba, and stateside Virginia and Georgia. That’s a lot of territory. So I’ve had friends, but good friends are those you can call in the middle of the night when you car breaks down (not that it’s ever happened to me).

Best friends not only will come get you, they’ll stand by you in the rain and wait. Best friends will go to yarn shops, homemade gift shops, walk miles in craft shows just so you can find the right gift for your mother in law.

I’m so lucky. When I came back to Texas in 2002, I went to work in an office with a great bunch of people. One person stood out as the most friendly, the happiest and kindest person I’d ever met. Cath made me feel a member of the office right away. We soon picked up a friendship that is hard to explain.

Cath stood by me while I cried about my Dad’s illness. She’s the one that made me take weeks off work to fly back to Virginia 3 times in 6 months to visit Dad. I was able to be there for Mom when she needed me because Cath made sure I went when I needed to. Not sure if I would have had the strength to do it, if Cath hadn’t been on the other end of the phone to comfort me and remind me that Mom needed me to be strong.

Today Cath and I are going SHOPPING, not just any shopping. We are going to a HUGE craft show. For the last 3 years we’ve gone and shopped till we dropped. There are all likes of stuff there. I’m taking my camera so plan on photos in the next blog.

Wish the Cath/Kathy’s a great shopping/hunting trip. More to come

Yarn, Yarn and more Yarn

Recently I was asked by a new knitter “what’s the difference in Yarn and are there some brands better than others? That got me thinking, I know gasp, thinking what a concept. So I took a look in my stash. Well, I had to work my way into the room; it meant I had to pick up the sock yarn basket, the heavy cotton bag stuffed with natural cotton yarn of course. I realized that my stash consist of many different types of yarn. It really depends on what I’m making. In my case I have lots and lots of left over yarn cause I always over buy. Hey, what if I run out and can’t get the dye lot? I have baby yarn (mostly English Snuggly as I love the way it feels). I have some sock yarn (I got on a sock kick awhile back). Did you catch that sock/kick? Ok so not much of a joke, but I tried. When I pick out yarn, it depends on who I’m making the item for. Example, a sweater for a football preteen boy living in the mountains will be different yarn than that for his cousin living in Florida.
I looked through my stuff and realized I had lots and lots of bits and pieces of yarn. You know, half a skein of a dozen different weight blues and I still don’t know where all the green worsted weight came from. Trina hates green, so it couldn’t have been for her. Could it?
Then there’s the lace yarn I got from the kids for my birthday. It’s beautiful and so very soft. I’ve knitted myself a shawl, my mother in law a shawl and I still have half of it left. I’m saving it for something special, but just haven’t picked out the right thing yet.
Then there’s the knitting machine yarn. Did you know that stuff breeds when you put it in a closet? I know there’s no way I could have 26 cones of yarn. Yes, I did buy some last year for Christmas stockings. But I knitted over 2 dozen socks and who knows how many scarf’s out of the yarn and there seems to be just as much left as there was when I started. How does that happen?
Thinking about all this yarn has made me want to go to the yarn shop. Anyone see a pattern here? Talk yarn, want yarn, buy yarn….