YARN

I need to blog about my trip to Gatlinburg the weekend before last, but for now, here's a little eye candy. We stopped off for lunch in Franklin, NC, at a place called the Frog and Owl. It was...interesting. The decor was "mountain bistro". The attractively faux textured walls highlighted the various rusty metal frog sculptures scattered around. The menu looked great; I ordered a mixed green salad with fruit, almonds and goat cheese (mmmm...goat cheese...) with some dressing that I can't remember (because there wasn't enough of it), topped with chicken. We knew we were in trouble when we read the fine print on the menu, which essentially said, "We prepare all food fresh to order. Please allow us the time to lovingly hand-make our creations." Uh-oh. It did take a while for the food to get there, but we were on vacation, so who cares. I did have to listen to other diners complain, though, like the tablefull of "little old ladies" beside us who told the waiter that "salad should be on a COLD plate". Puh-lease! I would not have wanted my chicken salad on a cold plate...it would have leached the flavor out of the chicken and made the goat cheese less creamy. I hope I don't become that set in my ways. Anyway, I was actually amused by the whole thing...even when our waiter brought our food and asked, "Would you like fresh pepper on that?" and then left never to be seen again! LOL! The best part of the lunch (besides gazing at my sweetie) may have been that across the street, we saw a store labeled "YARN". DH insisted that the store must be named "YARN". =) The real name is Silver Needles, I believe. It was a really cool store; the yarn was arranged by color rather than by brand/type. That's the first store I've been in that's arranged that way. She had lots of different things in the store, and even though it was a very small space, it did not feel cramped. I got to feel yarn from alpaca, llama, camel, quiviut, bison, banana, soy...it was fabulous. Anyway, DH said my self-imposed yarn-buying ban was listed, so he picked the yarn on the right for socks, since I said, "You've never really asked for anything knit for you." It's yummy yarn and advertises that it's enriched with aloe vera and jojoba oil. I'm not sure how many washings that lasts.... The only problem is that after leaving the store, I realized that he'd probably never wear wool socks, since he is incredibly warm-natured! Oh, well, I'll have some pretty socks then. =) The yarn on the left is made from recycled saris in Indonesia and helps abused women. Very cool stuff! I want to make a funky purse with it. After searching for patterns, I came up with these two options:

• Aline


• Chunky Funky Cable Bag

What do you think? I'm leaning towards Aline. I was looking for a simple, shaped bag, since fancy patterns wouldn't show well with this yarn. Plus, it needed to be something I could knit with only 150 yards! Votes?