Grumbles

When I was working in the city, my local yarn shop was one I could walk to during my lunch hour. It was in the middle of the historic part of town, so the scenery was nice and the traffic not too bad (it's hard for someone to drive like a bat out of hell on a cobblestone street). The staff were nice enough, and the regular yarn selection okay, but my favorite part of the store was the bargain basket under the table with the books for sale. Each ball or skein in that basket was only four bucks! The basket contained leftovers--too few balls to make it worth the shop owner's while to waste valuable shelf space on them. There was never enough of one yarn for an adult-sized sweater, but I could always find at least a scarf-worthy amount or something. Once in a while I got really lucky, as when I found six balls of Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino in brown (in this case, the societal tendency to dress babies in pastels and brights worked in my favor, 'cause that meant this lovely brown was just waiting for me to give it a home). Most of the time, though, I'd end up with one or two skeins of some interesting yarn that I probably wouldn't have given a second look to if I'd had to buy it at full price. But for four bucks I'm happy to add it to my stash and do some experimenting with it!

Unfortunately my current local yarn shop--the one that's near where I live--doesn't have a bargain basket like this. Phooey. The store has some great yarn, but, to be honest, most of it is far too expensive for me to be able to afford--and certainly too pricey for the sort of dare-taking and experimentation that a bargin basket encourages. I sure do miss those great deals...