What a wonderful surprise!

Oh my goodness! What a wonderful surprise I got on Tuesday. This haul is what I brought home from a trip to Simply Sock Yarn in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Let me tell you how this came about.

My oldest son has taken some vacation days this week and asked me to keep Tuesday open to do some things with him. He had talked about a trip to IKEA for a chair for his house and he wanted my help to hang some pictures. Of course I was up for these projects. However, when Tuesday came he surprised me with his real plan - he was going to drive me to Ft. Wayne (its about 3 hours away) and gave me a chunk of change to shop at Simply Socks. Needless to say I was totally blown away. I have mentioned a couple of times...okay several, no many times - that I wanted to go to this shop but they are only open about 4 days a month. He checked their website and found out that the store would be open during his vacation time and hatched this plan with my youngest son. They were both very proud of themselves for thinking of this gift but I am even more proud of them. They are both wonderful young men! I am certainly blessed with thoughtful sons.

So now to the yarn store - it is amazing! It lived up to and exceeded my expectations. Wow! What a great selection of yarns. Simply Sock Yarn like the name says, is mostly sock weight yarns, but the owner, Allison, does have a bit of DK weight too. There were the brands I've seen before - Malabrigo, Madelintosh, Opal, etc - and other brands I've only seen online - Three Irish Girls, sweetgeorgia.

I spent about an hour in the shop and these skeins jumped into my arms.

From left to right - the first skein in Dream Smooshy and the color is Giant Peach. I see a shawl for this yarn. The next two skeins are sweetgeorgia. The yellow one is called Kill Bill and I see socks in this skein. The technicolor hot pink, lime green, purple yarn is called Hummingbird and has cashmere in it. That is definitely going to be a scarf or shawl. It will feel wonderful around my neck.

Again from left to right, the first skein is a Lorna's Laces and the colorway is Spats. I saw a cool Hitchhiker shawl here on Judy L's blog, Patchwork Times, with this yarn and want one for me. The next two skeins are Three Irish Girls. The brightly colored one is called Ainsley and it told me it needs to be a pair of socks. The Fall colored one is called Fireside Chat - rust, gold, burgundy, olive green, forest green and navy - I could not resist!  The last one is  Jawoll Magic. It is tweedy with tones of black, gray, old gold and touch of blue. It reminded me of Purdue's colors (my oldest son's alma mater) and I think it will make a lovely scarf too.

All in all I was just overwhelmed with my day. The yarn is lovely but the thoughtfulness of my sons to make this wish of mine a reality was the best part. Thank you Chris and Nick - you are the best sons a mother could have.

Happy stitching-
carol fun