Family Knitting Weekend

So Saturday morning we all got up and went on a little adventure. I had printed some directions from map quest for 2 yarn shops in the area and we are knitters after all. So we went about 20 miles up the road from our hotel to Coralville, IA to visit Crazy Girl Yarn Shop. The shop is in a cute little shopping area near the train station. They have a huge wall of Cascade wools as well as some nice sock yarns. Mom gifted me the one seen here. I love it. The color here is pretty good. It is Trekking Pro Natura. The fiber is wool and Bamboo. Pretty.... GAL picked up a Spun magazine with an article on striping yarns. It is mostly about spinning. I would love to try spinning someday. Seems to me, hand spun yarns add one more element to a project that one can do oneself. Making the item that much more special. But I digress...

After we left the Crazy Girls We set off to find a shop called The Fiber Hut. I had seen an ad for this shop on line somewhere and it was said to be inside a German restaurant called Der Shammershmacken. ( this is not the name of the place but what I said when I mangled the German in the car. We all laughed.)GAH said the name meant something like The Good food or The Good Chef something like that. Anyway off we go onto the highway. We take the exit on my sheet. ( I like a dork did not print the map, nor did I bring one.) We take what we thought was the turn and end up somewhere in central Iowa farm country. It was a lovely drive but no towns,restaurants or yarn shops to be found. We stopped at a small community center to ask for directions. The people were very nice and got us back on a paved road toward town. We drove along and still did not find the place. We did find a great little gift shop in the middle of nowhere. All I remember about its location is that is it somewhere near Old Man Pass and Old Lady Creek. The very nice lady there gave us directions and we were off again. By this time we had given up on the printed directions and were just going with it. The dude with the long ponytail at the gas station told us the restaurant was up the street. "just look for the big chicken" he tells me. Ok ladies lets find us a big chicken. Here he is.(this is the only photo I took. I keep meaning to and then we all kept right on yakking)

In case you are wondering he is as tall as me. We went in to find no Fiber Hut. The girl had no idea what I was talking about.Ah well. We had a very nice lunch, where we stuffed ourselves with good food. Off we went again down the Iowa Highway. The trees still have some color and the weather could not have been much better. We stopped in Little Ammana and looked at the shops. Jan(Moms Guide dog) urpped in one shop so we did a little clean up and then went to taste some wine. Finally worn out with our travels we went back to the hotel for some knitting. GAH helped me with my little toe problem and showed GAL the finer points of Christmas Stocking knitting. You must under stand that her Stockings are among the most treasured items in so many family's including mine. I helped Mom seam up her ribwarmer, and we all knit away.


After a while we thought it would be fun to get our shop on so we went across the street to the outlet mall. Here we had a grand time shopping for all kinds of things. We got some great books I will share later. We shopped for kid stuff too. Soon it was time for Pizza and more knitting fun. We had the Wizard of Oz on the TV, wine, food, yarn and each other. It was as near a perfect evening as we could ask for and over all too soon.





Sunday morning brought brunch and more shopping. We had a grand time. MG is getting a new winter coat from the Gap that we got a great deal on. Gotta love the outlet mall. There were many great buys I won't go into it. However. My Mommy who I love so much got my part of my Christmas a little early. I love them. They are the most comfortable pair of heeled boots I have ever had. Classic cool. Did I say how much I love them? I Love Them!

We are already thinking about our next trip. This spring. This kind of thing is just too good to do only once a year. The yarn shop tour of the US has begun! We are thinking of St Louis next time. I promise to bring a map next time!
Ladies, I miss you already. I am so lucky to have you all in my life, and so is my little girl. We love you!