Recovering from Yarn Fumes

This was a very, very good weekend. And perhaps best of all, it was preceeded by a couple of weeks of lovely anticipation.

Charlotte was coming to town for a conference, and had a free weekend following up. So we planned to meet up for a little yarn crawling and revelry in geekery. And things pretty much went exactly as planned.

I picked Charlotte up Saturday afternoon, and we headed to St. Lawrence market for lunch (savoury crepes and potato ... things. They were good. That's all I need to know) and the fixings for dinner in the form of fresh, handmade pasta and sauce, shrimp, and eggplant. Then it was time for the yarn crawl.

The first stop was The Naked Sheep in The Beach, which was a shop I hadn't visited before. It's a very nice shop, and I picked up some new bamboo needles to replace some long, ungainly plastic needles that have been driving me up the wall. This was also the place we saw the first Clapotis of the day - aside from the one I was wearing, of course. I warned Charlotte (a crocheter) that we would be seeing several of these as we wandered the yarn stores of Toronto. I should have kept track, but I do know it was at least three.


Next up was, of course, Lettuce Knit. It was here where the true enabling kicked in, as Charlotte found a great book of crochet patterns for babies, and we got some help picking out some Baby Ull in a warm, kind of milk-chocolate brown. I had to join in the illicit spending and picked up some of the Manos del Uruguay that I fell in love with during the knitting of the Kitty 62 hat for Rachel.

I also picked up a book that I am sure will very, very quickly become a favourite and a staple. I kind of feel like my bookshelf is honoured to have it join its ranks.

We ended our mini-yarn-crawl at The Knit Cafe, enjoying the chance to play with our new toys and relax with some delicious treats.

And we ended our day with some very geeky television watching, wherein I doomed Charlotte by getting her hooked on Firefly, which was very mean and I feel kind of bad about.

This morning, we had breakfast at Cora's (mmm, cheesy omelettes, awesome coffee, and crepes full of raspberry and cream) before I dropped Char off at the bus station for the long ride back to North Bay.

The whole visit was full of catching up (some much overdue catching up included) and lots of singleton bonding that is usually lacking when we meet up, as we're generally with a group of very married-with-children friends in Windsor. As much as I love my many couple-friends and their families, it's really nice to get a chance to connect with someone who is really in more of the same kind of place in life as I am. We haven't quite taken the fast train to bitter town, but we do both appreciate the chance to be with people who don't have to check with their 'better half' before planning a weekend away, or going out for an evening.

And as great as married life might be, single life can be pretty good, too. Especially when you include geekery and yarn.