Happy Dance

This has not been a good day for making measurable progress on anything. Well, that is unless you count wading through about 30+ e-mails progress, which doesn't count when the Big D needs a revised Chapter 5 like yesterday! But I have this ugly sinus/trying to be a migraine headache and I have been cooped up in my house for going on 5 days now, and...well I could just scream about now.

In that big pile of e-mails was the monthly newsletter from my new LYS (just across the street) the Yarn Haven announcing the arrival of the new Addi lace needles and lots of new lace yarns. It's the 1st of the month so my meager allowance is at it's fattest, so the temptation was just too much. I grabbed my Get Out of Jail Free Card, er the dog and the car keys, and I did a happy dance right on over. The owner, Sandy just grinned when I walked in the door. She said she just knew I would show up in the next day or so and she was so right. I've been wanting the new Addi lace needles and was sort of waiting for Jinka, the owner of my other LYS Loopville, to get them in since I told her I would buy some. Well, I stopped by Loopvile last week and she didn't order them, so I was thinking I would have to resort to ordering them online. Well brava to Sandy for saving me the grief.

Apparently Sandy has had quite a few people ask about lace yarns in the last month, so she decided to give it a whirl. Don't you just love new shop owners who only want to please you and try to get whatever they can for you ;o). In fairness to Jinka, Loopville is located in a very small place that is just overstuffed with yarns and everything so space is at a premium, whereas Yarn Haven is in a big, very open space with lots of room for displays of nothing but lace needles. I love both shops and patronize them just about equally thus far. In addition to the lace needles Sandy acquired signed copies of Lavish Lace with pricey yarn packs to match, plus NZ Artisan yarns of Margaret Stove fame, plus lots of fancy handpainted lace and fingering yarns from Cherry Tree Hill, plus some great yarns from Crystal Palace that I've been itching to try. Talk about doing the happy dance, just fondling all this stuff made me happier than Zoloft could ever achieve. LOL

In the end I limited myself to 2 sets of needles, a 4 & 5 in 32" lengths. I use size 4s more than anything it seems, and I needed a 5 to knit the FiberTrends Estonian Lace Shawl which I think is up next on my list of "wanna knits". I have the KnitPicks circulars in the smaller sizes (2 & 3) so I don't need to buy the pricey Addis there, but I'm not convinced about using the KP Options so I'll buy Addi lace needles in the bigger sizes.

Deciding which yarn to purchase was not so easy as I wanted them all, naturally! In the end I decided to go for a couple of balls of the new Panda Cotton from Crystal Palace. This yarn is 55% bamboo, 24% cotton, and 21% elastic nylon so it's stretchy, kind of like Cascade Fixation. I chose a subtle ombre of blush pinks they call rosewater which should knit up nicely into this great sock pattern, Early Spring Sock, that I saw on their website last month. This is a totally new adventure for me, knitting with elastic yarn, but the Panda Cotton should be perfect for padding around in in Tennessee summers. I'll keep you posted!