Restraint

At lunchtime, I needed a little distraction and a little time on my feet, so I wandered around the yarn shop across the street for a little while.

The advantages of having a shop so close to work is that I can pick up a set of needles, some sock yarn, yarn for a small present, etc with little planning. I've even rarely gone there to buy yarn at lunch because I finished my bus project on the way to work.

The disadvantage is that temptation is so close. There are many days that I don't leave the office for lunch (especially in the winter), but when I do it is difficult not to go browse. And I find that I can rarely browse and walk out empty-handed.

But today was an exception. I browsed and I didn't buy. I think this primarily a result of the products the shop carries and not any amazing power on my part. (I was in Jo-ann over the weekend and couldn't resist buying two skeins of kitchen cotton that I will use for baby stuff but don't immediately need. Even less so now that I have a car to drive and don't have to stock up on yarn because I don't know when I will next be in a yarn shop...)

Don't get me wrong, the shop has nice yarn. But when it comes to "basics" their options are not extensive. My other primary yarn shop has a large section of wall filled with Cascade 220 and Lamb's Pride in a variety of colors. This shop has a wall of wool in a variety of colors, but there are more brands and thicknesses, and many of them only come in 3-4 colors. This shop also doesn't have any basic cotton - It's all significantly blended (50 cotton, 50 nylon) or mercerized - which isn't great for bibs and washcloths. Lastly, the shop carries a lot more funky yarns than I think a shop of such a small size should have. I've seen a lot of women in there buying novelty yarn and big needles, so I assume it serves them well...I just have no interest in it.

Anyway, the current possible project I'm mulling over is the circle of fun rug from Mason Dixon Knitting. It would be for the baby's room. I really should do so stash diving before I make any purchases to see if I have the beginnings of possible yarn for this project. Partially, I need to find a cost-effective means of obtaining the yarn, and at the same time I'm not really sure what colors from the room I want to pull into the rug. I might need to wait until we have the glider to see what's what.

(For those who know our registry - yes, there is a rug on there. And yes, I would still like to have it. I'm just not assuming that we're actually going to get it. And even if we did, the room is big enough that we could easily use two rugs.)