She Can Smell Yarn Fumes A Mile Away

I had such ambition in Washington DC.  I didn't even look at where yarn stores would be in  Baltimore, assuming that while the Philosopher is patient, he also knows just how much yarn is at Chez Hedgehog and how I don't really need any more. Besides, we had plans of the Aquarium and a wedding to attend.

The wedding was beautiful and utterly quirky. The bride wore a very late 20s/early 30s glamour girl dress with a cloche style veil. The ceremony was held in the formal parlor of the Engineer's Club, a mansion that took up three townhouses. The parlor comfortably held 120 or so of us seated in rows. I managed to sit down next to another knitter (neither of us had knitting with us--I don't take knitting to weddings) and we had a good chat about wool. After cocktails and food, a 10 piece brass/woodwind/percussion band processed through the house and we followed them into the ballroom/theater.  The music was lively and led to much romping.  It's safe to assume a good time was had when the band thanks you for your lively dancing, right?

The Aquarium was very cool, though we did resist the dolphin show. The Philosopher is a warm temperature man at heart, he loved the various jungle/rainforest enclosures that were set up. I was okay in one of them, found it muggy, but the other one was almost unbreathable.

We also visited the Walters Art Museum. I'd never heard of it before, which doesn't mean a whole lot, but we discovered it right next to our hotel. We only had an hour to visit it after we'd been to the Aquarium but it was an interesting dash through. They had an "Ancient Americas" special exhibit. My one complaint with it was that it was misnamed: only Central and American art was included.  This isn't a reflection on the collection itself (the project of one man and my thoughts did wonder to whether Peru or Mexico might start asking for some of these things back) just on the choice of names.

Leaving Baltimore, we took the train to DC, dropped our bags at the hotel and headed to the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum. We hit almost all of the areas, though we didn't spend much time in the mammals section. Having the Field Museum spoils us.



And then, because the cherry blossoms were peaking two weeks early while we were there (and before the tourists who'd planned to come), we walked the nearly 5 mile loop of memorial monuments (Lincoln, Jefferson, MLK, FDR, Washington and the various wars). It was glorious.  People were out strolling. The trees were incredibly fresh and it was calm.


(Me at the FDR Memorial, Photo by Philosopher--and yes, that's a Piddleloop knitting bag)

The next morning the Philosopher took me to the hotel I would be at for the Computers in Libraries conference.  We took the DC Metro and then trudged up the hill towards the Hilton.  And lo if we didn't walk past a yarn store on the way there.  Here I'd said I wouldn't buy any yarn because it's too far out to Fibre Space and the wool fairies gave me an alternative with Looped.

I was very good and didn't immediately demand that we haul all luggage up to the second floor right that moment.  Instead we checked into the hotel, I dropped my bags, we got lunch and the Philosopher left to catch his flight. And then I went to the yarn store on the way back to the hotel.

It's a lovely store and the staff were very nice.  I was on a mission to find something I can't regularly buy, which eliminated a lot of their stash but that inspires me to find something special that will remind me of the trip.  This time, I found Dirty Dye Works.



The yarn base is Paula, which is the 100% BFL base. It's not the squish of merino but it's a really nice wool. I purchased Avocado and Bark. I had intended that I would knit socks--after all they are fingering but then I remembered all of the two colored shawls I'd been stalking. There are some very interesting patterns out there that might do quite nicely.  And since it's past Easter....