wool therapy

The complexity of life has begun to wear (I know I'm not alone on this one, raise your hand if you are in the same boat? Whoa...see? There's a lot of us...) and I find myself looking for more and more of the little things to revel in.

One of those are the playdates I have with Mary where we just go out and bum around and look at things fibery (what I refer to as wool therapy since that is usually my fiber of choice) with no real stringent agenda in place. (Seriously, the question "What do you wanna do next?" is a constant comment when we go out. Its actually nice not to have anything planned out.)

Okay, maybe that's not entirely accurate. We set out with the plan to go Artisan Knitworks out in Groose Pointe but beyond that we were playing it by ear. I've said it before, its the prettiest yarn shop in the world. Don't believe me? Here's proof:

Yarn yarn everywhere. Its heaven. There's no way I'm spending any amount of time in here and not coming out with something. I picked up these two beauties:

This one is fingering weight yarn from Schaefer yarn in the colorway...ummmm....doesn't list one. But I got it because it reminded me of aged copper (the colors are more muted in person). Since I'm helplessly addicted to Anne Hanson's lace patterns, I'm always on the lookout for pretty fingering or lace weights. I think this one would work really beautifully for the Boxleaf Wrap. Mine will be a little narrower then what the pattern says (I have less yardage) but that suits me better.

The other one I picked up just because, well, its pretty.


Its from Happy Hands Hand Dyed Fiber (can't find a link) in the colorway Brown Eyed Girl. Just so you know, the color in the picture is accurate. Makes me a little concerned about what kind of brown eyed girls the dyer is used to seeing (see the purple hunk there in the left hand corner?). But I love the combination and there's a lot of yardage to work with there so when the right project comes along, I'll have just the thing.

But the wool therapy did not stop there. We have been wanting to stop by a shop close to Artisan called The Wool & Floss. Mary and I turned all geeky when we saw their section of embroidery threads. We don't have too many brick and mortar embroidery places still open around here. Its left me with having to order online when I want to replenish the stash and that totally sucks the fun out of it. So being able to see it in person was a real pleasure.

They had a big selection of DMC wool which I'd not seen before (and which I probably won't again since they said its being discontinued.) I love stitching with wool so at only $1.05 each I was able to snatch up quite a few colors:



I'm in love with them. I may have to marry them.

After that we had lunch at the Pegasus in Greektown and walked around a bit looking at things. There are several historic churches in downtown Detroit and this one, St. Mary's, is one of my favorites:


How can you not love that architecture? We wanted to go inside and look around but the masses of people all dressed up that kept hurrying through the front doors made us think that maybe a wedding or something important was going on so we decided not to. Although we've not been wedding crashers before, that could have added some fun to the day.

I love the way the church is holding its own against everything new and modern being built up around it:


So little of the historic parts are left of the city, its frustrating. Although I think that's true in a lot of cities. I had the awesome opportunity of visiting London and Paris right after I graduated from college (oh how I wish I was doing the Where I Stand essay then, think of all the awesome shots I could have got off that one week trip) and what I liked best was all the old buildings. They hung on to everything. Something that was 200 years old was considered new. I wish it was like that here in the states.

Anyway, it was a nice day and now I'm home and plan to do my slug impersonation for the next two days before I have to go back to work. Its funny, just when I'm finally starting to unwind its time to go back. Its like the Godfather line, "Just when you think you're out, they pull you back in." Except I'm not as cool as Michael Corleone.