Thank you for all the birthday wishes.

It turned out to be a pretty good weekend.

First of all, the gifts:



Enough Fable in a bluish-green color (it's color 96; I think that it's called Billy Goats Gruff or something like that) for a second Bookworm vest. My mom (or rather, her cats, it's "their" gift to me) sent me the Red Cross sock kit tin as well. (If I do make the socks, I'm not going to use the enclosed needles - size 3's with sockweight yarn? Supposedly for men who'd be marching long distances wearing these socks?)

There is also a Gift to be Named Later, something my mom said was on back-order.

And the results of my Grand Day Out:
I am not going to show a picture of the embarrassing amount of silly novelty yarn I bought at my first stop (Michael's). However, I will admit to having purchased some of perhaps the silliest-attempt-to-be-hip-in-naming-yarn ever: Bernat's "Bling Bling." They even put a definition of the concept on the label for those of us unhip folks who might not know what it means. But what the heck, it was a sage-and-pink yarn and I thought it might make a nice dress-up-a-plain-dress type scarf.

However, I am going to show you the unexpected treasure I found:



That is 12 ounces of handspun, handdyed amethyst colored worsted-weight wool, and almost 12 ounces of handspun (by Kimberlee Dills, it says on the tag) lace weight natural wool yarn.

I found this in a new yarn shop in McKinney. Yes, New Yarn Shop in McKinney. It's not big - it's just a tiny cubbyhole in the old hardware store building on Louisiana (which now mostly houses a shop called MorningStar Treasures and which once held the now-gone Kindred Spirits). There seems to be a pretty active spinning and weaving community in the north Dallas area, and the woman who ran the cubby said she opened the shop to give them an outlet for their wares.

The worsted-weight SHOULD be just enough (I'm guessing there's between 700 and 800 yards there) for a smallish, simple garter-stitch shawl, like the Meg Swanson one (that I now forget the name of) in the Knitter's scarves and shawls book. The laceweight is also destined for a shawl but which one I'm not sure yet.

One thing the picture does not convey is the wonderfulness of the yarns. The purple yarn is quite evenly spun but still very rustic. And the color is just wonderful - it's the real true color of a healthy lavender flower (not the pale, washed-out purple the color-naming people dub "lavender") and is "uneven" enough to be beautiful. And the lace-weight is fluffy and lofty and very light. I bought perhaps more than I need (perhaps twice as much; there was a shawl there on display that the owner told me was made with one skein of the stuff) but if I have leftovers, there are always other projects it can be used for.

I also went to the bookstore there (Mc somebody's - I can't remember the name now but it's fairly new and is in the old jailhouse, v. atmospheric. And I love small indie bookstores anyway, the wabi-sabi feel of the selections, the realization that the books have not been chosen simply by virtue of the fact that they're on the NYTimes bestseller list).

I also went to Quilt Asylum, in its new, larger home. Love this shop. The people who run it obviously are fans of the bright, so there are lots of cheerful springy fabrics here. I bought some for yet another fat-quarter quilt, and once again in pink and green, but limey green this time, rather than the "30s green" of my previous pink-and-green endeavor.

(What can I say? It's been grey grey grey here and that baby-leaf-green just spoke to me).

So Saturday was great fun. I don't know, I suppose some think it's kind of pathetic for a person to go off shopping alone but I rather like it. Like the fact that I can spend as long as I want in my favorite shops, and can avoid the shops that specialise in Brighton jewelry or clothing or baby stuff or other things I don't consider a part of my hierarchy of needs.

I also had my yearly dose of fried food, a grilled cheese and onion rings with a chocolate soda on the side at a little old-style soda fountain called Herby's.

And then, Sunday. I got "Happy Birthday" sung to me twice (the first time during "Donut Fellowship" before Sunday School. It amuses me that my church has a time it calls "Donut Fellowship."). I also got dinner, and cake, and sung to a second time in the evening. One of the young couples in the church have a son whose first birthday was this past Wednesday, and they had a little party for him and invited the church members. Because it was my birthday, they insisted on singing "Happy Birthday" for him and me both, and I got to blow out the candle on his cake (well, at 1, he was more interested in getting his hands in the frosting than in the candle). So that was good, too.

And then today - get an email from my co-author on one paper, telling me "it's done now and is good enough that I don't need to look at it again." This is from someone who is even more of a perfectionist than I am, someone who once commented that a person could keep rewriting forever and still the paper would not be ideal. So that makes me happy too. (Also the sense of "at last this is done")

One of the better adult birthdays I've had, and certainly better than last year, when I was stuck in a horrific meeting in OKC.