After leaving our cabin on Saturday morning we took Bud for a walk then set off to sort out some needles to enable me to knit on the way home. Here’s what I got (well of course I got eight but two are in the car somewhere)…
Here’s how WE got them…
We went to a charity shop where I was informed they can’t sell them as they are an offensive weapon. They use to keep them to one side and take a donation (I knew this since I got a pair that very way last year) but the manager had caught them and they had to throw them away!
We then tried a general shop at B’s suggestion who referred us to
The hairdressers – who had needles but not double ended ones
So we got in the car to and B suggested we stop at a village 15 miles away even though I was 95% sure they didn’t have a wool shop. I broke at 12 miles and cast on for a Myeloma Buddy but with the yarn being 4ply it seemed so tiny that B said we’d stop anyway.
We parked up, popped Bud on his lead and all went for a walk down the main street where I tried…
A shop that sold touristy type stuff which had an odd owner (I am not just basing this on their lack of knitting accessories but that the last time we called in he was complaining to a local about customers!) , he said I wouldn’t get any but I could always ask the girls as the grocers
They said ‘Try The Trading Post’ – a hardware store at the end of the row that sold just about everything – except knitting needles but the lovely owner suggested a secondhand place we could get to by turning left at the previous traffic lights and going behind the hotel to a large green warehouse called The Shed. The owner then fussed Bud and stated that our Staffie was hazardous to people in that he could lick them to death.
So we all traipsed back up the main street, round the corner and tucked in behind the hotel was this large green warehouse that was full of all sorts and indeed did have double pointed needles.
However, the lady who knew where the needles were was on the phone and so we waited and waited and when B was just shy of having steam coming out of his ears she finished up and I got my needles. The co-owner was also a knitter and described some gorgeous needles she’d found that were tortoise shell effect with silver ends – I managed not to drool openly.
So two hours after starting our needle search I jotted down some pattern details off the laptop and cast on for a pair of trainer socks for a friend and then I nodded off, and then I knit, and then I nodded off (I had been awake since 5:40), and then I knit, and then we stopped for a wee (or rather three), and then I knit and nodded and then I looked at the sock good and proper and I thought – ‘That’s awful’
I mean look at the quality of those stitches at the heel – I hang my head in shame…
So I pulled the stitches off the needles and knit a Bamboo Buddy! I have since confessed this to B – just in case!
The yarn is Wendy happy in Milky Way and is 75% bamboo and 25% nylon and is apparently one of those yarns that’s ideal for socks as it does the whole keeping your feet warm and keeping your feet cool thing. I of course wouldn’t know this, what I do know however is that it is soft, smooth and just lovely even when it’s not a sock.
Oh, and when B arrived in the bedroom this morning he said ‘Are you alright?’, ‘Mmmm’ I answered – the power of speech eludes me when I first wake up. B however is quite use to this by now and somehow interprets correctly most of the time, in this case ‘Yes.’
B: ‘Only your looks funny.’
Me: ‘How?’ – slightly more awake.
B: ‘It’s like the phantom of the opera. ‘ I swear it’s times like these I have to remember that at least I know when he pays me a compliment its sincere.
When I got up 10 minutes later – apart from being craft-less on a long trip I am otherwise quite hard to panic so didn’t spring out of bed straight away – it looked mostly like it usually does. However I do have a ‘bite’ on my forehead near my hairline – well hopefully it’s a bite since this is exactly where my first lot of shingles started and we thought that was a bite too and my face was swollen in a morning then too! I’m keeping an eye on it.
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