Knit*Six: Formula One, Knitting, and a Fantastic Indy LYS

We're home! Actually, we came back late Monday night. The race (F1 US Grand Prix) was a lot of fun--lots of good racing going on in the middle of the "pack," and a winner who didn't wear Ferrari red! I'm not Lewis Hamilton's biggest fan, but it IS nice to have some variety now that the oh-so-perfect Michael Schumacher is retired ;-)

Whatever I was coming down with when we left Washington got worse while I was away, though, so I had to call my doctor and ask him to call in some antibiotics to a pharmacy in Indy. But I still have a lot of pressure in my left ear, which has continued to hurt since the flight out of D.C.; it's really stopped up, so I'm going in for an office visit today. Have you ever heard of "airplane ear"? It's a real malady. Ick.

Holding a REAL F1 tyre in front of the Super Aguri garage.

OK, so that's enough of my old-lady-style bitching about health. Let's talk knitting.

I worked on my Online sock a lot while I was gone. I also got through several inches of the chevron scarf, but hated the way it looked in the yarns I brought, so I frogged it. Instead, I cast on for a pair of socks for Chris with that charcoal-brown-ish Koigu.But I swear that yarn has BYK (bad yarn karma) for me, so I might just rip out the cuff I finished and give the yarn away or stick it in my stash for a few years to see if it sheds the BYK.

On our last day in Indy, while waiting for our limo, I decided to check out a LYS. I opened the local phone book and chose one of the two that were listed. It's called "Stitches and Scones. The store's name drew me in, since I figured there might be food involved for Chris, who always waits so patiently. As it turned out, he occupied his time by losing his debit card at an ATM down the street, so we never delved into the food issue. But they did offer us one of their free home-made scones when I was at the register :-)

Cell phone photo so thoughtfully taken by Chris ("For your blog," he said!) while we waited for our taxi back to the hotel.

Well, let me tell you, that was one fabulous yarn store! Loved it, loved it, loved it. I've never seen so much gorgeous yarn from so many manufacturers (small and large) in one place. And an absolutely lovely place, at that. A small cottage-style building jam-packed with yarn, though it was very well organized. They also sold spinning wheels and a great variety of fiber for spinning. And the store's book selection was terrific.

In the end I bought two multi-colored braids of Fleece Artist hand-dyed Blue Face Leicester (BFL) roving and a 400+ yard hank of Fleece Artist BFL DK-weight hand painted yarn. So beautiful. (They carry local products, too, but they're more expensive and I hadn't planned the LYS trip, so didn't budget enough $.) I could have spent $1,000, no problem--I'll come prepared for more purchases next year!

Wow. I could have spent an entire day in there. And the sweetest part? When the owner heard that we'd taken a taxi from our nearby hotel, she actually offered to drive us back! How nice is that? Fiber people are very, very kind. I strongly recommend stopping by Stitches & Scones if you're in the Indianapolis area--you're guaranteed to be overwhelmed and enchanted!

I don't remember buying THIS fiber in Indy...

I'll show more pictures in my next post so you can see what I bought. Meanwhile, have a great weekend!