Any day that includes hitting two yarn stores for yarn and fleece, driving in torrential rain, receiving a brand new spindle in the mail and an attack by a herd of angry baby birds is a full day in my books.
First off, Stitches and Stuff in Longview, Texas puts everything in the store on sale for 20% off every July and January. So since I can still walk in my house I decided that I desperately needed to go. Also my Momma is having surgery at the beginning of August and I've been trying to get her out of the house as often as possible and I insisted that she needed a cool project while she's recuperating. She packed us a lunch of peaches and sandwiches and we headed towards East Texas. Momma thought that is would be best to go to Rosepath Weaving in Lindale, Texas as well because she decided that I need to learn to spin and that was going to be her big project while she's stuck in bed. I foresee lots of wailing and gnashing of Pigeon teeth this August.
The weather started off good, but just past Longview it started to rain. Then it started to rain harder and the big oil trucks were passing me and making it a very unpleasant drive. I'm a good rain driver and usually enjoy and good drive in the rain, but this crossed that fine line between raining and storming. One SUV had already skidded off the road and was lying in the median between the lanes of I-20. Let's just say that we were very happy to reach Lindale.
Rosepath Weaving is a wonderful store. They have everything from Needlepoint to weaving and spinning to yarn to beads. As I said everything. I got myself some wool to learn to spin and a book on weaving so that I can finally get my loom going. So far the loom and I are creating some magnificent crap. I hope to alter this. Then I went to the needlepoint section and gazed at a canvas that I've fallen in love with. It's a picture of a Native American Woman at a Navajo style loom. It's already been needle pointed and they don't have another copy, but the lady was in the shop today and told me she'd find me another one. Yay! So maybe y'all will soon see some needle pointing action from me.
The rain had slacked off so we headed back along US Highways 69 and 80 to Longview, but the rain found us again. The impossible occurred and it was raining even harder. I couldn't see the vehicles in front of me and the water was coming up over the road. While it was doing this there was no place to pull off the road and when I finally reached civilization and places to park it stopped. We survived, obviously, but my neck and back are still sore from gripping the wheel and trying that hard not to hydroplane. Very frightening.
At Stitches and Stuff I bought way too much yarn in celebration of life. Actually I picked up the edging for two prayer shawls and the 4 skeins of cotton I wanted. Plus I was inspired by a shawl in the shop and purchased enough wool to make a similar one for myself. I need to play with some stitch patterns, but I'm leaning towards a warm cabled shawl with buttons.
By this point we were both exhausted so it was off for home. I got extremely excited when I got a card from the mail lady telling me that a package was on my front porch. It was the drop spindle and alpaca that I had ordered from Big Horn Mountain Alpacas' in Wyoming. I'm very impressed with how fast they got that to me and with what's inside the package. I can't wait to get started.
In retrieving my box from the front porch is when I was attacked by the birds. I was bending over to get the box when I felt something soft beating me. I started to panic because I thought it was a wasp, but I didn't want to get stung, so I slowly turned around and was face to face with a teenage bird of some flailing variety. It was as freaked as I was and then it's siblings saw the mess it was in a started to come after me. I rushed into the house and those stupid things kept hollering at me for over an hour. I'm guessing that they're nest is somewhere in the eaves of my porch, but I don't plan to go and hang out there for awhile. Phew.
I think I'm going to go and knit and watch TV for awhile and gaze at my pretty packages now. I might even take something for my headache and grab a beer. Yep - that sounds like a dandy plan to me.
