The day out

 I guess in a way, my tradition for mid-fall break most years has been to go to a yarn shop, and that continued this year.

 I drove down to Farmersville. It's about an hour and fifteen minutes away, but it's pretty much a straight shot there on easy roads. (The only bad traffic was on the way home, back in Sherman, people were driving aggressively and inattentively and I had to be extra careful)

I had wanted to find yarn for the Auxetic Scarf from "Farm and Fiber Knits." It calls for sport weight, which is really less common, but dk is *close,* and for a scarf, "close" works, if you have enough yardage (I bought extra, three skeins).

After looking at some of the spendy hand-dyed stuff, and the kettle-dyed stuff from South America (which means you have to alternate skeins every row or two; there are no dyelots on that yarn and they don't always match ideally), I decided on plain old Berroco in a dark avocado green:

It's a wool-acrylic blend, so it's softer than some that were on offer and should be easy care. The shop owner wound it off for me so I can start the scarf right away (often winding off yarn is a bit of a time hurdle for me - it's not hard or timeconsuming but it is a barrier between "oh I want to knit this" and actually starting)

The other yarn is for a smallish shawl. I'm not sure what pattern yet but the "robin's egg" effect appealed to me. There's 880 yards there so it will be enough for a small shawl.

I also wanted another set of sock needles (these are metal; the other ones the shop had were wooden, and I've had bad luck with wood - in small needles it tends to break along the grain. Bamboo is okay but I'm not going to buy wooden small diameter needles again). I also got more row counters; those are always useful.

And this was an impulse purchase

 

I didn't realize it at first but that cat has one front leg and one back leg in the boots. (I don't know that something really "ain't right" with me but I do seem more disorganized and forgetful than some people)

 

I also went to a couple small gift/antique shops there. One of them had a cat

 This is Delilah. The owner told me she was a former feral (I could tell from her "tipped" ear, the TNR groups do that to mark feral cats they have neutered) but when someone took her to be a housecat, she wasn't happy being alone in the house all day, so now she's the shop cat, and seems happy. I suppose it's because a lot of people come in and she gets to yell at them and sometimes get petted (she let me pet her today; the owner did say she liked being petted)

I did buy one thing there. This is a souvenir doll. I'm not quite sure what the outfit is; I almost feel from "vibes" it's supposed to be a small boy rather than a girl. Apparently it was originally from Italy.

I just liked it. The owner said the woman who originally had the dolls (there were about a dozen but this was the one I liked best) used them on her Christmas tree and I admit I thought "Christmas decoration" when I saw him

 At any rate, it was a good day out