I survived the Great Cascade 220 Crush of ’09

If, after five straight days of family visiting, eating, Christmas gifts, eating, sitting around, visiting friends, and more eating, you are ever wondering how you are ever going to make the re-entry into the non-slothful regular outside world, well. A Boxing Day yarn shop sale will pretty much do that for you in a hurry. Lisa put out the Bat signal for me a few days ago, inviting me along with some of the local gaggle of Toronto knitters to hit the sale and then do lunch afterwards. How does one say no to that, I ask you?

Although I’m familiar to Toronto’s esteemed Romni Wools (and I suspect much of the knitting world is, by this point…it’s pretty darned big), I have never yet been to their Boxing Day sale, so this was quite an experience. I arrived around 10:30 am, and the shopping was already in full swing. 25% off is serious business, man.

I didn’t really go in with much of a plan other than “I want some Noro Silk Garden to knit one of those striped scarves and maybe something for a sweater.” The Romni Boxing Day sale is probably not the most opportune moment to casually decide to look for a few balls of Silk Garden, but there were still a few skeins to scoop up and I did so. The Cascade 220 heathers (7 skeins of dark turquoise) lept into my hands thanks to the helpful efforts of the knitters who actually managed to get within a few feet of the shelf. I thank them, though I know not their names as I was too high on wool fumes to remember to ask. Thank you, dear knitters who were in that knot down in the back by the worsteds.

By the time I was on a second circuit of the shop I realized I had bumped into the back end of the check-out line (by now mid-way through the shop) and decided to stay there. When I eventually emerged to the street, planning to wait it out in the cafe next door (a fruitless plan as it turns out every other knitter in Romni was like-minded), I ran into other Lisa who was doing the same waiting. We ventured down the street and sat with hot beverages and knitted and eventually gathered the rest of the group one or two at a time, and then a delicious pub lunch and yarn-score-comparison ensued.

And that was a good Romni Boxing Day sale day. Craziness man, but good.

I came back and promptly spent the rest of the afternoon getting my suitcase together, as tomorrow I head off to that other great North American knitterly town, New York City. (Well okay, it has other things going for it besides knitting.) I will be spending a few days there over New Year’s and I am pretty sure that my lodger/tour guide Rebecca has planned out an entire schedule for us so I hope to have some more exciting blogging from NYC later in the week. I am looking forward to a brief escape before heading back to the treadmill of another new term starting in (eek! don’t look too close!) one more week. Fingers crossed for safe and timely travels.

Happy knitting, and catch you in a few days from the Big Apple!