Thursday, December 23, 2004
Last Weekend--Yarn Store!
While my Mother was in town last week, we had a girls' weekend to Houston. I actually really like Houston. It is a huge sprawling city with severe traffic problems, but it has everything you could possible want.We drove down on Friday and made it in town for lunch. A friend had recommended a new Japanese sushi place, Todai. Todai is apparently an LA chain restaurant, but it was great. It was all you can eat (sure to be a hit in Texas) with iced green tea, raw oysters, a noodle bar, salads, hot Japanese foods, desert, and 30 some types of sushi. My daughter was free (their mistake!) and mowed a swath through the sushi bar, become particularly enamored of their shrimp sushi.
We headed to our B&B-Robin's Nest, in Montrose, the funky, museum district in Houston. Robin's Nest was a nice creaky old place and our room was very nice. Breakfast was even better!
Houston was all about Anna, with a trip on Friday to the Houston Zoo, for their lovely winter wild program, and to the Children's museum, for more kid time. This was all about Anna having fun with her Grammy E. And she did. Loves Grammy E (could it be the chocolate, carmel popcorn, and chips Grandma was dispensing?)! Anna enjoyed brushing the goats, riding the lovely old carousel in the zoo, and munching on the huge bag of caramel popcorn while being pulled in a wagon amidst the lights and animals. What a deal for a kid! The Children's Museum was amazing. There was a village in Mexico to visit, a huge Snoopy visit, and, Anna's favorite, a cow (big, lifesize plastic) to milk (or to give water....).
But what would a trip to a city with yarn be without a little yarn store diversion? We went to Yarns 2 Ewe for the yarn fix. I really liked this store. It was big, yet cozy. There was a lot of people knitting, many in lessons. The people working at the store were incredibly helpful, yet not snotty. And the yarns! If I wasn't stash reducing, I could have gone crazy. But I behaved. I only bought the yarn for 2 projects, one a gift!
Due to the success of the Mom Poncho, I let Mom pick out a pattern for her birthday in June (same day as my daughter--isn't that strange!). She picked out the nice vest that I wanted to make for her Christmas present, before she asked for a poncho. The vest is the Asymmetrical Vest from Sally Melville's The Knit Stitch:
The helpful clerk convinced me to knit this holding two strands of Lamb's Pride worsted, Mom found a lovely light green:
And, since we were in the yarn store, I had to pick up some yarn for a project, right? I am generally not impressed with patterns from Knitter's, but the Fall 2004 pattern, Coquette, has caught me.
The store actually had the lovely Extra Stampato, so I bought the necessary yarn in a pretty black with grey flecks. They didn't have the lighter weight Stampato for the lace, but the Rowan yarn in light grey should work. Whoppee!
A fine time was had by all!
