knit my brow

yarning to see me... © Raffaella Loro

There are times at work when I find myself completely underwhelmed by my conversational contributions. The small talk we generally make with our coworkers is often about safe and generally boring topics. It's a relief when you are finally able to hit on a topic of conversation that all parties are interested in as you do not have to feel that you are making conversation simply to fill the silence. Yesterday I chanced upon such a topic of conversation. As fall has been approaching the morning weather (safe topic) has become progressively colder. Yesterday morning I found myself buttoning my jacket up tighter and I realized that soon I would need to start wearing a scarf. The thought of scarves immediately inspires me to think of new knitting projects... and the one which was on the forefront of my mind was a scarf that I promised to make for my chum Wade I don't usually work from patterns for scarves... but this particular scarf is a unique double knit pattern (check out knitty.com for the free pattern) and I've never tried double knitting before. I happened to remember that one of my coworkers also knits... and we spent the first part of the morning excitedly discussing different yarn stores in the area and trying to find some nice knitting books. Usually we bore each other with talk about the weather. It was a happy change.

Following my inspiring conversation about knitting, later in the day I ended up at a big box book store (Indigo) with Aryn and Wade and I came across one of the knitting books I was interested in purchasing. I had checked the price online before heading out... and I was very disappointed to discover that the book in store was ten dollars more expensive. When I asked about it the salesgirl gave me some rigmarole about overhead costs. Aryn was also looking another book in the store which was significantly more expensive than online. We both left without buying anything. It was such a disappointing experience. I want to walk out the store with a book in hand... especially when I've traveled across the city to see it (side note: visiting the bookstore was not our express purpose for being in that part of the city, we were visiting some other stores in the area.) After leaving the big box I had several options. I could order from the company website (but only get the inexpensive price if I was a paying member of their discount club), order from Amazon or go to the independent book store two blocks from my house and get them to order it for me. In the end ordering from Amazon won out as it was inexpensive and should have quick turnaround.

Yes, I could also go to the library... but I like to keep these sort of books.