Yarn Stashin' on The Road

I'm back safe and sound and yarn-enriched. Yes, I made a couple of stops while on the road. My first stop was in Montevideo MN at Donna's Delights. It's a cute little yarn shop typical of small town yarn shops, Lion Brand next to the cashmere. She has sheep and sells yarn from their wool. She had some very cute mitten kits out that include her own wool too. I bought a couple skeins of this:


It is from Stone Hedge Fiber Mill and it is the softest stuff ever. It's beautiful. Unfortunately Donna doesn't take credit cards, I only had $20 cash on me, so I could only get two skeins. I may have to send her a check and buy the other skeins.

Montevideo is only the halfway point so I kept traveling to Watertown. Friday night we went out for our traditional chislik and beer followed by dinner at Mr. T's in the Watertown mall. No one seems to have heard of chislik, I think it is a Dakota thing. Now all of you tree-hugging "I won't eat anything that has a face" types need to scroll down. (I'm married to one of these. It's okay, but I like eating meat, sorry) Chislik is deep fried lamb chunks. It is much, much better than it sounds. I'm sure they only use lambs with crappy coats so no yarn opportunities were sacrificed in the making of my chislik. At dinner we talked about how the JoAnn in the mall is closing down and they are selling everything for as low as 80% off. Joann?! JoAnn has yarn. 80% off? Let's go. I bought the book "Hip Knits" for $3.00 and I got 11 skeins of this:


I'm making a top down cropped cardigan with it. It was really the only yarn they had left with enough of one dye lot to make anything. My mom and I spent a while standing in front of the yarn bins looking at dye lots and balancing balls of yarn in our arms. If they are practically giving away yarn, it's worth it. The cardi should be cute with jeans and I only paid $9 for the 11 skeins of yarn. I love a bargain!!!!

Saturday morning I went searching desperately for some decent caffeine source and found the Past Times Cafe. My parents haven't tried it yet because my dad says it looks like a sh)&*^& hole from the outside, but the inside is gorgeous. Restored old building with tin ceilings that are about 20 feet tall, big old woodwork, the real deal. Fortified by espresso, I went to the Knit Nook. I gotta say the owners of this shop are totally out of the loop. The shop is an art store/framing shop/yarn store and it's obvious that they are more interested in pictures of waterfowl in flight than yarn. They had bin after bin of the wildest new colors of Sugar 'n Cream. I picked out five skeins and brought it to the counter.

Knit Nook Owner: I see you found the new colors.

Me: Yep! They are great!

KNO: Yeah, I don't know why but they came out with all these new colors so I ordered a bunch.

Me: Mason Dixon Knitting.

KNO: Huh? What's that?

Me: The book, Mason Dixon Knitting. It's full of patterns using this yarn and everyone is knitting dish cloths and bibs like crazy.

KNO: Who's everyone? I've never heard of this.

Me: It's all over the web. Check out Mason Dixon Knitting online.

KNO: I don't really get the time to go on the computer.

Okay, so here is someone who is not going to be able to pick the BHFH out of a doggy line-up!