Gloomy day

Literally. It's almost eleven o'clock and there's still no sign of the sun. It's very pleasantly cool though. I'm sure come Labor Day and the temperature is 110F I won't remember how nice it was back in June. But it does make taking pictures and telling what time it is a bit difficult.

We, Mendy, Judy and I, went back to Unwind yesterday and had a blast. It turns out they knew exactly where the shop is because it's right across from Sheridan Gardens, a plant nursery, where they used to go buy Christopher Radko ornaments. I bought Hot Knits by Melissa Leapman. I've always liked her designs and this book is full of great things. I have already picked out one top to make and for which I have the yarn in stash. That's pretty amazing right there. And I got some yarn too. Unwind carries Lana Grosso which I haven't seen much of around these parts. So I had to have some of that. And I got some Plymouth Prato, enough to make a poncho. I forget the particulars but they have a card program where after you spend a certain amount of money you get some special discount or something. I'm already halfway there, or more, in just two trips.

After that. we went to Needle in a Haystack in Montrose. I hadn't been there in a couple of years. (There's another shop named Needle in a Haystack but it's up in Alameda, near San Francisco.) They still only have a small knitting yarn section but it's a lot better than it used to be. A young woman I used to work with at another shop now works part time at this shop. I imagine she had something to do with their upgrading their yarn selection. I got four skeins of Araucania Nature Cotton. I'm anxious to get started using this. It think it uses from 5mm to 6mm. I'll start with the 6mm and see how it looks. I only have 660 yards (600mts) so it'll probably be a poncho.

We had a terrific lunch at an Italian restaurant that is across the parking lot from the shop. Sat on the balcony and enjoyed the sun (which we had yesterday) and dodged the bees and cicadas.

I wrote about some old yarn a couple of days ago. I was considering making a poncho and I tried it out. I've since thrown it all away. Not only did I realize I didn't have enough for a poncho but it just had this really odd smell. I'm not good at throwing away stuff, especially yarn. At the current acquistion rate, however, I'm going to have to do a lot more of this if I'm going to have room to move around. I went to the market this morning and got some more of the two gallon size freezer bags to help organize my yarns so I'm planning to spend several hours today working on that.