Asheville!

As promised, here are the goods on Asheville.



The whole trip was really an excuse to visit Yarn Paradise, which was conveniently located about a block or two away from the hotel where I stayed. I had heard such great things about this store, and they are all true! Lots of selection, great sale stuff, tons of books + patterns, and helpful staff. That is the kicker: helpful but *unintrusive* staff. I went to a handful of shops during my trip, about six in all, and this shop outshone them all in the staffy department. At the other shops, I was either ignored entirely (I once had to search for a person to answer a question) or I was watched as though I were wearing a shirt that read "Opportunistically Steals Yarn -- Be Warned."

Also, what is with sock yarn? As in, why does no one carry it? My main goal for yarn-shopping was to find something for my sockpal, but most locations carried nothing but self-stripety jaquardy novelty stuff if they had ANY sockweight yarn at all. I wonder if this is, perhaps, a regional thing: all the northerly shops I've been to have had sock wool. Maybe Southerners are perceived as non-sockers. We can't help it if it's sandal-weather for six months of our year, but we do love to knit socks regardless. (Ooh! I just ordered some cute Birkenstock sandals (no that is NOT a contradiction) with which to show off my handknit socks. UPS keeps trying to deliver the box but I keep forgetting to sign the "delivery attempt" sheet for them.)

So Yarn Paradise hooked me up. I didn't find anything in the Charlotte shops that really cried out to be purchased, and I am glad I saved my money, because look what I got!



Doy! I got sock yarn! Here is where the "helpful staff" thing came in handy: I had totally overlooked the Regia self-striping yarn because it was hidden in with some uglier colors, but the sales-diva pointed out the juicy-good price, and that's when I saw the brown-and-blue ball. Yippee! I love brown and blue together, it is my current color obsession. So I got that, as well as the three pairs of Koigu skeins shown above. The solid yarn will probably be Mom's Christmas socks (I may do Embossed Leaves again, the pattern is pretty and knit up really quickly). The skeins in the center are probably the sockpal socks (I'm still shopping around). The pink skeins? Mine mine mine!! Koigu is so hard to find in my area that I didn't want to pass up the chance to have some fresh stuff that is not slated to be gifted later. I am SUCH a sockyarn ho! I shouldn't even bother buying any more yarn unless it's sock yarn, because I only ever seem to be satisfied with my socks. Everything else gets put on the "almost but not quite" list or the "to be reworked/ripped" list.



At YP I also grabbed a copy of Handknit Holidays by Melanie Falick, also an item that I don't see much of in these parts. At the famous Malaprops bookstore, I scored a copy of Stupid Sock Creatures by John Murphy, which is entirely appropriate as both the author and the publishing house are based in Asheville. I recommend this book: even if you never make anything from it, you'll get a good laugh. I like the author's attitude about crafting: he encourages a person to think beyond patterns and to individualize the project. Maybe when August rolls around, I will celebrate Make More Sock Monkeys Month and actually make a few. I still have those knee-highs from Target that I bought specifically for sock monkeys... At Earth Guild, a necessary stop in this town, I found the second volume (but not the first! cry cry!) of Modern Lace Knitting. Lots of gorgeous lace in there. I have a feeling that I am developing very strong project preferences, and they are leaning towards socks and lace exclusively. I wonder why that is.

Folks, I gotta say it: my new job is kicking my ass!! Some people, when their jobs are "kicking their asses" what they mean is "I have a load of paperwork to sort through and emails to check and whatever blah blah" but I mean "my muscles are about to give out, I am sore in places I never knew about, and my fingers are nearly too stiff to knit!" It is manual-labor gruntwork production stuff, and from the moment I get there to the time I leave, I am pretty much running, and running considerably more than I do while waitressing! So far, the hardest part is the late morning when my energy starts to flag and I begin to wonder if I'm consuming enough calories each day to fuel my work. My arms start to go all pudding-like and I contemplate falling over in order to buy myself a few precious seconds of rest. The good part is that I actually enjoy the job, and I work with some really cool people. And my arms, though sore, are getting superbuff and I have noticed in my yoga practice the increase in my upper body strength. I'm not "ripped" yet but it's only been a week. I hope things work out with this job, especially since I have already screwed up bigtime twice, although I think during the first few weeks at any job, people are given more "get out of jail free" cards than usual. Let's hope so! I'd hate to be back on the job market so soon.

Today I overslept and was 20 minutes late. I felt like a heel but made up for it by cranking up my pace, and we were able to leave early at the end of the day. Hooray for that. *yawn*