Yarn Adoption Day

Oh what an awesome Mother/daughter weekend. They are so incredibly fun. We started them a few years ago and our oldest daughter and I do something different each year. Once we included a dinner theater and another time we browsed through art galleries. This year, I was in desperate need of some clothes and Toni found it the perfect opportunity to initiate a make over mom weekend. We started Friday night with a hair cut by her stylist and went to a couple discount clothing stores. Kohl's being one of my favorites.

The environmental, sporty area Toni lives in would give me a better chance at finding something. Toni had assured me we'd find lots. It didn't take long for her to understand why when her mother finds something she likes, she searches to see if it comes in two more pleasing colors and buys all three. My dread of clothes shopping has become so bad that if I was a guy, I'd say foo...wy with the whole thing and buy seven shirts alike and four pairs of the same pant and call it quits.

I figured Toni was beginning to catch on to the reason why I dreaded the whole thing so much when I saw her eyes set in concentration staring at me as I stood in front of the dressing room mirror, her little mouth contorted to the side denoting confusion. By the fourth shirt, confusion was replaced by dumb foundedness, and the by the fifth, her mouth wasn't just pressed to the side but frantically trying to escape, while her eyes doggingly looked on trying to dissect the reasons why nothing worked well. Good thing stubbornness is hereditary because she stuck with me and we narrowed the clothing paddock down, found a wild game sized trail of fashions that were so so and even gleaned a few why's and why nots out of the deal. And though it was kind of fun, shopping in the kitchen store was a whole lot funner. There I knew I'd find adventure and a perfect fit. LOL

On the way back to Toni's house, we glanced at Whole Foods store at the oil department as mayonnaise is still on my mind. Talkng to a clerk, we found out that there was an oil store downtown that we missed. We've got to go there next time and we heard there was a noodle store but we never found it either. Plus, I didn't make it to the place that sells home-made tortillas. Yes, you can bet we won't be doing much clothing shopping on the next trip. We've got food in mind.

*********************** We spent Sunday after church walking and then we had stir fried vegetables with a small tenderloin steak courtesy of the deceased Mr. Angus Fence Tearer Downer. The flavor and tenderness was out of this world good. You've got to pay big bucks for a steak of that quality from a restaurant and we haven't got them.

Then stomach full, I settled in on the livingroom floor as the lure that moved the mother/daughter date up several weeks was dumped all around me. Bags and bins of heaven floated down and I sorted it into categories and even some of those categories into companies for though it all made Red Heart look like something the garbage man brought in, there were still those yarns who could have had - for royalty only -stamped on the label.

My fingers and eyes feasted upon this soybean protein yarn carrying me to the beach, ocean waves lapping at my feet.

Then I was whisked off to the dessert as I cradled this Bacterian camel yarn, my eyes trailing off following the prints in the sand of a wandering caravan.

Then I sailed off into the blue blue sky with this mohair creation...

Landing on the mountain tops of the Andes amongst a clump of grass, llamas grazing around me.

I looked up from where I sat in the tall grass and gazed at the blue mountain ridges in the distance and longed for an alpaca of my own.
Or maybe I'll get two for you can never have enough alpacca. Just look at these exquisite earth tones and I dare for you tell me it isn't so.

Chilled, I headed to the sunny tropics where I munched on a banana and quenched my curiosity about just what banana yarn felt like. The bright orange colored yarn reminded me of a Tuscon sunset. No, I've never been there but my imagination has.

Just like I've never been to Italy, but this yarn reminds me of rich juicy tomatoes. The silk label has be questioning the kind. Surely not Tussah or wild silk as they have a satiny sheen. And over heated once more, I head to Tibet to run my fingers through some yak down. An animal my husband has longed for. I'm looking in to them. A subject we've really got to talk about. Since I'm close by, I slip on over to Asia and herd some cashmere goats though I've had a few dairy goats with quite a bit of cashmere wooly undercoats though I've never had it dehaired.

Then on my way home, I slip down south and run my fingers through the smooth slick cool cotton. And finally I land back home and determine once more that this will be the year that get permission to walk the pastures just outside of town where the deer, antelope and bison playand collect clumps of wooly under hair that the bison shed in the spring.

The one place I went but forgot to take pictures was the Merino sheep herds of Australia and the New Zealand countryside where the possums wreck havoc on the enviornment. Yes, these two fibers are blended into a wonderful yarn. I'll bring you along with me next time but right now I'm stuck since I left my bag of yarns on Toni's livingroom floor. OOOOPS!!! and it had the Merino/possum wool inside.

Lest any of you think she's lost her mind, no, none of these skeins came home with me. Toni kept them for her own stash. Who can blame her? But I did collect a heavenly pile of my own. And in case some of you have gotten the impression that we are filthy rich. It isn't so. Yes, some of these yarns are pricey and we both are yarn snobs to the core. I spin most of my own yarn and Toni is an Editor at a crochet magazine where these incredible yarns were part of completed projects for the magazine. Hence, many are partial skeins, some just one full skein left, and in rare instances there are two or more skiens. Many of these yarns find there way back into the magazine in the way of staff projects or technique visual aids. That's why Toni's worked for the company for four years and it isn't until now that this is my first adoption day. You can imagine my thrill.