Tag: Hobby Lobby

Day Off

by eileentroemel, posted in Crochet and crafting

I should be productive right?  Well my day off has been not overly productive.  I saw Stephanie off this morning and dozed until Vicki called me.  After talking to her while she drove to work, I dozed until 9.  Finally dragging my bum out of bed / sleep mode, I hit the computer to do some bookwork like updating my expense report for my writing, working on the budget and so on.

I had a plan – when don’t I – but it has fallen through the cracks and I’m just winging it now.  As soon as I’m done on the computer I’m going to go pick out some of my “stash” yarn.  Then I’m going to work on a pattern I’m seeing in my head to see if I can actually make it.  If it turns out decently, I’ll work on publishing the pattern.

I was going to put in Downton Abbey and watch the last season while I crocheted.  I don’t think that is happening at this point.  Ken will be home soonish and he won’t want to watch it.

Stephanie and I went to Hobby Lobby and Joann’s last night.  I walked out having used a 50% off coupon on one item and the other items I bought were already marked down.  I spent a little over $20 and saved a little over $30.  I love it when that happens.

Next is for Ken to wash these for me so I can get the projects done.  Two of them are experiments to test out an idea I have.  I have so many crochet projects bouncing around in my head right now.  I can’t get them done fast enough.  At the same time I have a lot of projects on the go so I really need to finish some of them.
I need to remember – one thing at a time.  It’s all I can do – one thing at a time.  I just need to pick a project and work on it.  The one bouncing around in my head wins!  I’m off to pick out some pretty yarn for a small project and hopefully I will finish it quickly in order to move on to the next crazy thing in my head.

Yarn is wonderful… Yarn on sale – HEAVEN!

by eileentroemel, posted in Crochet and crafting

Recently, Vicki asked me to make a few things for her to give to her co-workers.  They are small items and I don’t have a problem.  She emailed me the colors and I went to my lovely wall of yarn.  I pulled out all the colors I had but I discovered I didn’t have them all.  This meant I had to go yarn shopping.

As you saw in the last post I also made a scarf for Ana and in doing so I used up one of my colors is Sashay yarn.  I love the colors of that particular scarf.  I actually wrote down the color so I would remember it the next time I bought yarn. 

It became obvious to me that I was going to have to go yarn shopping.  The types of yarn – ruffle and crochet cotton – I needed do not go on sale often.  My thought was I’ll start with what I have all the colors for and see how far I get.  Ana came to visit and after seeing her with the scarf I realized there was a lot I wanted to try with that same color.  The ruffle yarn is $5 – $6 per skein and crochet cotton is about $2.25 per skein.  This is an investment. 

I get emails from all my favorite craft stores – Michael, Hobby Lobby, Joann Fabrics, Herrschners – letting me know about specials and sales.  Herrschners runs yarn sales all the time but I hadn’t seen any with these two items in particular.  Then I get a Michael’s email – I’ve just been deleting without looking at these (it’s a time thing) but for some reason I looked at this one.  Good thing I did – they have both these yarns on sale. 

The other issue then is money – I was looking at my budget and thinking I really can’t afford to go get a lot of yarn.  I’ll have to keep it to the bare minimum.  This is just sad because if there is a sale on crochet cotton in particular I want to buy all the colors I can because I go through them quickly.  In my head I was considering payments for the week and having this internal debate about being good and not buying yarn and splurging and buying yarn. 

As I realize I am of course going to do the responsible thing, I got a payment for editing.  Perfect!  I can now splurge a bit on yarn.  It’s been a crummy week for me – sinus infection, lack of sleep, weather induced pain for my arthritis – I’ve been a lot grumpy this week. 

Last night I determined I was going to stop at Michaels on the way home from work.  Their store is not user friendly at all.  From the door that doesn’t open automatically to the narrow clutter filled aisles, this is a store that is difficult for me to get into and move around.  I took my scooter though and grabbed a basket – that was not fun – but I get back to their yarn corner and just had fun.  I grabbed all the colors I needed (except for one that I’m not sure they even make).  It was fun to look at the colors and think of the things I would make and who would like what colors.  I think I rolled around the two aisles several times looking, adding up money, and enjoying selecting the colors. 

I didn’t buy one thing that wasn’t on sale.  I saved $21.  I didn’t break my budget.  I got five skeins of the ruffle yarn and twenty plus of the crochet cotton.  I picked some colors for specific people, some because I knew I was out, and some just because I liked them. 

When I left the store, I felt wonderful.  My mood was happy and I was looking forward to working with the yarns.  I even started one of the projects for Vicki last night.  Now I have to get the colors organized for my projects for Vicki and the rest need to be added to my wall.  I do think I’ll be using one or two of the ruffle skeins this weekend too. 

My weekend plan – after the errands are done – dvds, crochet hooks, yarn… heaven!!!