Ahhhhhhh........

Ya know, a vacation is a goooooooood thing....

After a few too many days of this:

.... I realized I needed to get AWAY. I counted it up and discovered that in the last 35 days, there were only two days that I had not come into the store or been working in some regard. I wanted just a teensy bit of time where I looked at something that I didn't see every single day... I wanted to look around and see something new, and I am not talking about new yarn, either. I wanted to drive down a new road, not have to talk to anyone if I didn't feel like it, and be a person that other people helped instead of being the person they looked to for help, just for a day or two.

So I took off. I asked Joe if he wanted to come with me, but he was unfortunately busy... just as well for him , since everyone knows that yarn shop ladies who go on vacation..... buy yarn!!!!

I'm on vacation. Right now. I'm actually in a hotel room right this second as I type this. I took off Thursday after work and I will be back at the store on Sunday morning after I drive back from Bar Harbor. Yes!!! That's where I went on vacation!!! Bar Harbor, where everyone in the world goes on vacation in Maine. I figured, why not??? It's like being on vacation without having to work very hard. It's practically next door (well, if next door takes you two and a half hours to drive to), it is easy to get to in the middle of October, and the ocean is just as pretty now as it ever is. Prettier, maybe.... lordy lordy lordy, you should see how gorgeous the foliage is up here. My, my, my... such pretty colors, orange and yellow and red and green and brown and the blue/green ocean.

I realized that in my two days off, one day, today, would be rainy (and yes, it poured), but one day promised to be a little bit sunny. So I am going to Acadia National Park to do the ocean & nature thing tomorrow. Today, my lovelies... ah, today..... I went to THREE yarn shops!!! All by myself!!!! I am still shivering with the delight of it.

First I went to Bee's, which is the most fabulous combination in the world: a yarn and chocolate shop. Sigh. I quiver at the perfection of that combination. I indulged mightily in yarn at Bee's, and I got enough Elsbeth Lavold's Silky Wool to make a sweater, along with the pattern book and needles to start said garment cuz ya know. I only brought about 9 projects with me, already started, and you know I neeeeeed to start this Silky Wool thing. Geez. I also bought a skein of utterly lime-a-licious sock yarn and teensy needles.... I tried to start the sock yarn in a restaurant, but why is it that the more you want to get started on a project in a hurry, and the more you are in a public place doing that, the more the yarn you pull out from the middle of the skein is a monstrous tangled mess??? I got the tangle half untangled and then my pie came. Guess which I finished first. Oh, and I also bought some loverly chocolates from Bee's as well: coconut snowballs, Grand Marnier truffles, espresso truffles, coffee creams. Yum! Here's the yarn porn for you to look at:

Off I trundled to Southwest Harbor, where one of the best yarn shops in the state is located, Lilac Lily. I love this store very very very very very very very much. I had never been there before, and I am duly regretful. It is a fabulous and awe-inspiring place. You'll never meet nicer people, find a richer or more varied selection of products or have a more comfy place to sit and knit. It is amazing... a whole house filled on two floors with yarn and needlework supplies. I filled another bag with goodies and had a nice long talk with Chloe, the owner. It was truly wonderful to meet her! I walked out with a seriously decadent yarn haul: two skeins of 100% silk, hand dyed by Great Adirondack, a pattern and Lantern Moon rosewood needles for said yarn (see above about needing to have required goods to start any project immediately) and several skeins of that new sock yarn that has chitin from crab shells in it (it's new to me, anyway... ). And needles for said sock yarn, of course!! Here's the Lilac Lily haul:

The last shop on my daytrip list was Shirley's, in Hancock, of course. Shirley's is truly a legend unto itself. It has everything. Really, everything. It is a huge gift shop and candy shop (with homemade fudge!! which I somehow escaped buying), but it is also one of the biggest yarn/needlework/craft/beading/paper shops I have ever seen in my life. So when I say Shirley's has everything, I mean it. It is no exaggeration. The people there are so friendly and wonderful, too. I love going there. I was kinda hungry by this point, it was after 2 p.m. and I hadn't eaten any lunch, so I shopped fast -- I had a serious pie date at Helen's in mind. Nevertheless, darlings, I managed to find some treasures to make your heart stop. I got a wonderful fingering weight 100% merino, hand painted yarn from Claudia yarn -- a skein of limeade and a skein of Tropicana, which has lime in it. Socks, of course... And I got some Omni Knit Sticks needles because I like the points on them better than the points on the needles I got at Bee's ... just in case I start that Silky Wool sweater before I get home. Never mind about the 27 sets of size 6 needles I already have at home. At Shirley's I also got a skein of luscious merino/alpaca/silk yarn from Araucania, a slightly thick and thin singles, hand dyed in Chile... in such beautiful, glowing colors! I had to have it. I'm thinking mittens. So I got dp needles to make mittens, in case I want to start them now. I am so pathetic, no??? Yes ... I did need a vacation... Here's the Shirley's loot:

Tomorrow I am going to sleep late (again)(I always sleep late, heh heh) and then I am going to have a little brekky and head to one of the lesser-traveled entrances to Acadia National Park. I haven't been there in so many years... and it is such a gorgeous place. You could never see the whole park in one day, so I am going to re-visit two or three of my favorite spots, take lots of pretty ocean and rock pictures, and find a lovely place to knit for the rest of the day. Tonight I will have a little supper (better be a salad, after that pie at Helen's!!!) and knit my evening away. Yes, I think this is the perfect, perfect vacation, and it is just what I needed. :D

And just to end this on a really grand note, did you know that the Unique One fall yarn sale is going on right now? 20% off regularly-priced yarn in stock; the sale ends Oct. 21. So if you want to go on a little vacation too, come to Camden and snag some yarn at a good price! We have a lot of new yarns, so if you haven't been in Unique One for a while, now would be a mighty fine time to go!! And what the heck, wander up to Bee's and Lilac Lily and Shirley's too, if you have a few days. It is definitely worth the trip!!

Smile while you knit, darlings... :D

xoxo