Tuesday, March 8, 2016

A magical escape to yarn land

Hey, guess what I nearly missed?  Yep, the Viola shopping night!  Let's all thank Laurinda, without whom we would not have these pictures to enjoy.  I was grabbing a minute between coughing fits to approve her recent comment last night, and when I read her remark about Viola - yikes. I checked my watch and dropped everything to run to the door.


Whew.  As always, Emily had turned an otherwise extremely nice knitting space (The Purple Purl) into a magical fairyland of Viola-isms with nothing more complicated than a string of white Christmas lights, some wooden crates, and a garland of hand-stamped tags.

(seriously: totally stealing the idea of a hand-stamped tag garland.)

It was a lovely evening - when I arrived the daylight was just about gone, and the interior of the shop was lit with soft lights and filled with happy people.  On the table between inviting chairs, Emily had set out different cakes of yarn for people to try out.  Knitters' homecoming, basically.

I spotted the most gorgeous sweater sample on a table and asked Emily about it:


I can't answer for the colour being true (I think it was more brown and pink in person), and anyway Emily doesn't sell her merino lace yarn any more, but I was enchanted by the stitch as much as the featherweight feeling of the fabric she'd made by holding two lace yarns that combined merino wool and alpaca fibres.  The pattern is Light Grey Structure by Regina Moessmer and wow, is it ever amazing in person.  Really nice shoulder detail too!

So, here's what happened between me being excited to go to the Viola shopping night and me nearly missing it: our refrigerator.  Remember all the trouble I had choosing a refrigerator?  (see how I'm not linking to that post, because I care about you and don't want you to have to look at that again?)  And in the end, I was SO happy with our choice.  It's a nice old-fashioned 30" wide fridge with no water filter and no icemaker, because we are putting hardwood into the kitchen and I don't want to mess around with extra water where I don't need it.  Counter depth would be prettier but I ruled those out straight off - they cost a lot more and give you a lot less storage.  That's a price of beauty I have no interest in paying.

I was awakened from my happy dreams of no more appliance shopping by Andy, who called yesterday morning to break the news that the fridge I picked won't work because it sticks out almost flush with the doorway to the dining room.  I need to pick counter depth after all, not just for looks but so the house has proper traffic flow.  After cursing Physics for a while I got to work hunting for refrigerators, which pushed even thoughts of yarn out of my head.  I was still hunting, jabbing away at my phone, as Pete drove me over to the Purl.  But the prospects are bleak, because counter depth fridges have even more complaints and breakdowns than regular fridges.  And I mentioned about the dramatically reduced storage, right?  You have to go up to a 36" fridge to get close to the same storage as a 30" regular fridge, and those extra 6" are coming straight off the side of my sink, where I'd like to be able to put a dish drainer thank you very much.

Looking at every angle now that we can't move the door, we have four options.

Give up the door entirely, leaving one access point into the kitchen and requiring all groceries to be tracked through the whole main floor and around a corner to the fridge.  Or maybe cut the door down to 24", or just do a pass through window at that point.  (no extra cost.)

Install a 30" counter depth fridge in the kitchen where we wanted the fridge to be, then add a second fridge in the laundry room in the space I was saving for the slightest chance at some exercise equipment. (around $9K.)

Install a 36" fridge behind the back door instead, where there's room for it, and carry all the groceries to the farthest direct corner from the front door and you won't be able to get at things when people are moving between house and deck.  (around $6K, and we have to deal with water filters and ice makers.)

Install a 24" counter depth Bosch fridge where we want the fridge to be, and another exactly like it at the opposite end behind the back door for largest amount of in-room storage, then pray hard that companies go on making 24" refrigerators forever because hello, soapstone counters?? Not cutting new openings into that in ten years.  (around $6K again, but no water filter or ice makers!)

UGH.  I don't like any of these options.

But I do like looking at this picture so let's just smooth our feathers down again with some beautiful yarn:


And, you know, stripes.  Emily does such beautiful muted stripes, don't you think? 

I have to dash off to the appliance store now so I will show you the yarn I bought in a day or two.  Please think good fridge thoughts for me - it's such a first world problem, but after all this effort I really want to get the kitchen right!


2 comments:

Laurinda said...

It sounds like two 24" would be your best option, from the way you describe it. Good luck with those hard choices though!
You really threw me, mentioning your friend Laurinda- I'm 53 & have only met one other in person! Glad you got to enjoy the yarny goodness :-)

Mary Keenan said...

Laurinda I was talking about YOU ;^) Seriously, I would not have remembered for a week if you hadn't written that comment. FRIDGES: my nemesis!