Road Trip

Since DS #2 joined the Marine Corps, I have bonded with a group of women on the knitting website, Ravelry, who also have kids in the military. It’s been great to be able to chat with a group of women who really understand what it’s like to have a child deployed to a war zone. We chat as a group on Thursday evenings, not just about our kids, but also about our knitting and life in general.

It turns out that one of my Ravelry friends with a son in the Navy lives in Rutland and has another son who lives not far from me. Last fall Cindi stopped by my LYS while visiting her son and his wife so we could meet in person. Shortly after that, I took a trip to Rutland on a Sunday afternoon to sit and knit at her LYS. A month or so ago, I went down to Rutland again when a Ravelry friend from Massachusetts, Corky, (2 sons in the Army) was in there to visit family. The three of us had a lovely afternoon knitting together and chatting in person. Two other friends from the Midwest (Marine and Navy corpsman sons) are coming to Vermont in July so that we can meet them in person, too. It’s amazing that one can feel so close to people one has never met in person, but it’s even better when you actually get to see them.

Last Thursday night the subject of WEBS, a yarn store in Northampton, MA, came up during our chat. For those of you who are not familiar with it, it’s a very large yarn store with a huge warehouse in the back where one can wander around and find great bargains. It also happens to be the time of their annual sale. Cindi had never been there so she suggested we make a road trip. Bright and early yesterday morning I headed to meet her in Rutland and then we made our way down to meet Corky at WEBS.

I don’t suppose I really needed any yarn, but there is never such a thing as too much yarn. It’s hard to go to WEBS and not buy a lot (although I did get out of there with only one skein of sock yarn when I was there last May). This time I had two knitting friends to encourage me and a request from my sister for some yarn to go with some in her stash. We wandered the store petting all of the yarn and filling our baskets. Then we went out to the warehouse and wandered the aisles snatching up more bargains. After more than three hours of shopping, we finally made it to the check out. Here are photos of my haul.

Yarn for socks for DH


Sock yarn for me

Yarn for my sister

Yarn for unknown project

Yarn for a shawl

We were starving so we headed over to Chandler’s, the restaurant at the Yankee Candle shop (or should I say complex). We had a lovely, if very late, lunch (Thanks again, Corky.) and then wandered into the candle shop. Next came an hour of sniffing and critiquing the zillion different candles that they stock. The names got so confusing that we weren’t even sure which ones we liked and which ones we didn’t. We finally made some selections and bought something to remember our trip. We each got a candle holder that says “Hope” which seemed to sum up our feelings about those who are deployed.

Our original plan was to knit outdoors on the beautiful grounds of Yankee Candle, but it was getting late. We still couldn’t say goodbye to Corky, so we chatted in the parking lot for longer than we should have. We headed back to Vermont and Cindi dropped me off at my car. I finally arrived home at 9:30 PM. I was exhausted, but it was a wonderful day.