What Difference Does It Make?

I'm going to start my post off today with a UFO.

In this case it’s not an unfinished object, but an Unexpectedly Finished Object. It's an Odessa hat made with fuchsia Cash Iroha and sparkly mirror glass beads.



I was trying to explain to Saffity yesterday about Cash Iroha and how it's different from most Noro yarns: a single colour, soft and with almost no vegetable matter.* Cash Iroha also gives off a pleasant scent when you are working with it. It's hard to describe, but it just smells... clean, like freshly washed bedsheets dried in the wind. It's one of my favourite yarns and I'd like to have more of it so I can work with it again.

* It's not perfect though. Because it is a single instead of a plied yarn, it can pull apart in sections where there is not enough twist.



***

I talked to Saffity at the Knit & Chat on Friday morning. I believe I’ve mentioned that we have pretty much reached capacity for our Friday morning Knit & Chat at Starbucks, but with some judicious furniture rearrangement – thanks to Miss Gail, who arrived early and put her husband to work lifting tables and pushing chairs – we were all quite comfy.

While it’s true there’s a big new Starbucks (twice the size of where we are now) that just opened down the road, I think many of us would be reluctant to leave our current home. And the owner does not want to see us relocate, either. She actually came to us yesterday and said, “You can’t leave.”

Being wanted makes a big difference.

***

The evening Knit & Chat was very lively last night. My blush reflex was certainly getting a lot of exercise. Honestly, I just made a polite inquiry about playing bagpipes – playing bagpipes! – and several minutes of lewd and suggestive comments ensued.

Then of course I get blamed for giving people the opportunity. Gah! How are you supposed to avoid setting up for something like that when your own mind is so squeaky-clean and innocent [snort] you didn’t even see it coming? (Speaking of coming… never mind. More indelicacy. This time from a totally unexpected source. And she wasn’t even wearing her sunglasses.)

Anyway, after that I decided to sit quietly and get on with my knitting. And I did manage to knit quite a bit on my cardigan sleeve. It's about three-quarters finished now.



***

So anyway, after the evening Knit & Chat, last night was date night. My husband and I have been making a point of stopping on the way home from Shall We Knit and spending some together time. Last night we decided our date was to go to the new Starbucks for some Chai lattes. We might also have wanted to check it out and see what it was like.

The place is very big and open, but there are some nice seating areas, with large chairs and even some leather ottomans for additional seating, as well as plenty of wooden chairs to borrow from the surrounding tables. An extra-nice feature is the freestanding fireplace that acts as a sort of half-wall to divide the seating areas. However, compared to our current Starbucks, it’s big and it’s cold.

Lots of room to fit a large group, but cozy? Forget it.

Cozy is nice for knitting.

So it looks like there could be another solution, which is meeting on a second day. Most of us (well, we who profess to having “no life” other than knitting) would be up for that. But since these things evolve organically, it’s unclear what the final schedule will be.