Recovering after the fire

during the Black Forest Fire, we were pretty sure (as were the owners) that my favorite fiber store in the area had been destroyed by the fire

we were so delighted to learn that they had not been!!

but of course, now that they are back into their building, they are holding a fire sale, and on Friday morning we took a trip

these trees, which are burned up quite a ways are right behind their studio building where they hold workshops (and the back of that building is blackened all across the back)

this picture was taken from the footbridge that goes from the main store to the studio building

right in front of the studio building are a row of big gas burners and the propane tanks that feed them

the underside of the footbridge is scorched

the fire was that close to those propane tanks -- which would have probably resulted in the total loss we thought had happened

the firefighters did a wonderful job!!!

 this trip was not all about a fire report though!

I went looking for fiber

there are these, for instance --- two skeins each of some awesome variegated feltable yarn and a cool little book with some patterns for creating some neat little bags (one of my favorite things!!)

the plan here is one large bag (the blue/purple yarn) and one smaller bag and possibly to do some needle felting over the wet felting 

should be fun!

and there was this group from the "smoke sale" which I plan to use to knit up hats and mittnz for the Indian reservation I make things for

I also picked up four of the grab bags --- each of these is make up of several yarns of similar fiber content in smaller, partly complete skeins or skeins that ended up being "one of"

the one at the bottom left is wool and will also end up in charity hats and mittnz, but the other three are cotton/bamboo/ramey/hemp/silk blends which I have a whole other project in mind for since they all blend together well in terms of color

I was briefly tempted to pick up a skein of yarn that had possum fiber in it (yes, you read that right, POSSUM!), but since I did not have any clear plan for it, I decided to put my budgeted spending into things that I got the most "bang for my buck"

looking forward to all those new projects!!

yesterday morning we loaded up and headed off

here is Miss Elphie and her satellite dish in the back seat of the van -- she was not at all sure she wanted to take a ride since the last one had resulted in something that was not very fun

riding in the car meant some knitting time for me --- another afghan square complete!

we are house/dog/bird sitting while Mr Cute (and his folks) go to visit with this other grandparents 

should be a fun week!