It’s been gloomy outside, like reeeaaallllyyyy gloomy. Today I saw the sun for the first time in at least 5 days. But when you have crazy stitching friends, you make your own sunshine!

This past weekend was the metro Charlotte Yarn Crawl – 11 shops to visit over the course of 2 days, and we made it to all of them and were the first group to turn in our crawl passports! Several of the shops showcased unique yarn bombings.

We cruised through 6 outlying shops on Friday, then descended on one of our Mom’s home to spend the night.

We spent a lot of time laughing.

Saturday morning we got up to still miserable weather and set out to visit the remaining 5 shops. We saved the best for last, I think, or at least my purse thought that!

……….And we laughed. A lot. 

We took pictures with Handsome Hank to try to win extra prizes.

Yarn crawls are always so much fun wherever I have lived – of course it is an opportunity to see and purchase yarns that aren’t available locally. But we also made a point to dine at non-chain restaurants for meals. Shop owners are happy to recommend places we wouldn’t have known to try, and one even gave us a coupon for a free appetizer. Grilled artichoke hearts – yes!!! at 131 Main in Cornelius. And on Saturday when we “took the scenic route”, we happened by Cabo Fish Taco. Delish!!!

And we laughed some more!

I had 2 specific holiday projects in mind for which I was looking for yarn. I checked off those boxes the first day! I tried to exercise restraint, but I wasn’t too successful (understatement). A couple of the shops were in the process of closing their doors which is always sad, but why would I walk away from heavily discounted yarn and tools? Nope, not me. Can’t do it. I was quite giddy that I found the twisted cord maker at 40% off. It’s the little things, isn’t it?

I am finishing up some projects, then I will continue to make sunshine by knitting or crocheting or weaving my crawl acquisitions into new projects. Some of this yarn is sure to morph into new designs that I will share with you someday, and some doesn’t know what it wants to be…  But when I do get around to working with my crawl stash, I know I will relive the laughs.

Knit on!