Trip to Farmersville

 The drive down wasn't great. I got on the road and got just out of town and my "check tire pressure" light came on. So I sighed, dragged out my little compressor, and offered up a prayer that it wasn't a nail in the tire (a colleague reported a flat on his truck; the roofers on our building were NOT careful about policing the nails and screws they left behind). But all the tires were low; it had just been too long since I checked them. Anyway, that was fine for the rest of the trip. But, I didn't know about construction on 69 and it was horrible - they are tearing up segments of the road just outside of Bells (IIRC) and it's on a flagger system, and you have to sit and wait FOREVER. And once I got past it, I wondered: what happens after the guys are done working for the day, there's no "temporary stoplight" like they sometimes put up, and it's not a stretch of road where you can see the end from the other end. So I decided I'd have to find an alternate route home.

Then I decided to rely on satnav, instead of using the route I had planned out first. Satnav never met a interstate or four-lane that it didn't like, so it tracked me what was a LONGER way so I had to drive on 121, rather than staying on 160, which would have been logical.

But I finally got there.

Farmersville is SMALL. In a way, it reminds me of Whitesboro - there's nothing at all as you drive on the road in, and then suddenly: old brick buildings and a brick street

 That's the view from Main Street, looking down towards McKinney Street

Yarns and You (which abbreviates itself YAY) is on Main:

It's a surprisingly large shop (The white signboard on the yellowish store is the storefront). They say there are no public restrooms but if you are there for a class, or are buying stuff, you can use them (The shop owner, when I asked, said that was try to reduce people coming in and either "showrooming" or just coming through to use the restroom. Once again, people who are a little selfish ruin it for others)

It's BIG as yarn shops go. At least three times the size of the one in Denison

 

They have, I think, every color of Berroco Vintage (A standard, worsted-weight you'd use for sweaters) and some other Berroco yarns, and lots of sock yarn...they have a website that lists many of them by brand.

They had the kit I wanted:

 That's for the Cuyahoga National Park hat - the teal represents the river, the dark one with orange is the foliage of the autumn trees, the brown is tree trunks, and the tan is the background

They also had the short size 3 circular needle I wanted.

Oh, I bought some other things:

 This is an Oklahoma based hand-dyer (A Chick that Knits) that I've bought from on Etsy but it's nice to see her yarn in a shop. This one is called "Tropical Flowers"

And even though I rarely wear these colors, I really like this color combination - it's sockweight yarn and I bought 880 yards of it; I want to make a small, simple shawl (maybe one of the Woolenberry patterns) with it. 

The colorway is called "cornsnake," which kind of delights me

 I didn't buy this big candle (I don't need any more) but it made me chuckle a little:

After checking out, I asked the owner if she could recommend a lunch place. She said if I liked sushi (not really) she'd recommend a place in Prosper (but I really didn't feel like driving to another town anyway) but then she recommended Over Yonder, a short walk from where I had parked - they do all house-made foods, soup and salad and sandwiches and she recommended a sandwich she likes, pulled beef (I think she said brisket, but it's not as dry as much of the brisket I've had) with caramelized pickled onions, horseradish sauce, and cheddar cheese melted on it

 

Oranges were one choice of sides. The only other ones I remember were chips (which I didn't think I wanted) and carrot raisin salad (allergic to carrots). But the oranges were VERY good with it, because they were sweet and juicy and contrasted well with the rich meat and cheese. 

The second yarn shop felt more like a distributor's, with bags and bags of stuff and I couldn't tell if you could buy less than a bag full or not, and I wasn't in the market for a sweater's worth of yarn. It was also a lot dimmer and a lot more crowded with stuff, and at that point I was tired and didn't feel as much like digging. 

I did go to a soap shop that was there (no bookstore, sadly) and bought a couple bars of soap (one called Zen, that has a nice sort of citrusy scent). The owner also pointed out her new line of tallow based soaps (they put tallow in EVERYTHING now) but I just quietly said I preferred the coconut oil (which was the soaps she had in nice scents).

And then home. Where 160 became 69, another road (11) branched off that went up to Sherman, so I took that and got back to the Albertson's that way.

 

It was worth the trip for Yarns and You, and the lunch was good; I will probably go back at some point in the future.