A Lion (Brand) In Sheeps Clothing

To quote my dad quoting Mark Knopfler, “Sometimes you’re the windshield. And sometimes you’re the bug.”

Monday I was the bug.

I woke up early to take a flight to NYC for work, only to learn that I couldn’t board the plane. Apparently, I needed to get to the airport 2 minutes sooner to meet US Airways new 30-minute-boarding-pass-printing-cut-off-rule. Instead, I arrived 28 minutes before my flight departed, so although I had already checked in online, I wasn’t able to board the plane. (I know that some people reading this will think I got what I deserved by only giving myself 28 measly minutes to get through security and to my gate, but to those people I say, “Come to Richmond, my friends.” You can get through our sleepy little airport in less time than it takes put gas in your car. Truly. A speedy airport, clean air and endless monuments to white racists are just a few of the perks we enjoy here.)

I finally landed in New York though, made my way to the office and proceeded to stay there working until 3:00am.

When you go to check in at your hotel and the front desk clerk greets you with “good morning,” it either means you’re the sh*t (and you’ve been partying with models all night long) or you’ve been sh*t on. In my case, it was the later.

I got up to my room about 3:30am only to realize I had forgotten my toothbrush.

Then someone outside started hammering something. Don’t ask why. I asked, out loud, to the heavens, and got no response.

But you can only be the bug so long. Then you get to reincarnate and wake up as a windshield. And that’s exactly what I did on Tuesday. I woke up, went back to the office and finished things up just in time to pop over to the Lion Brand Yarn studio for a quick visit before I caught my flight home.

This is a place I love to visit whenever I’m in New York because, although the yarn still tends towards the acrylic variety, it’s so much more fun to look at in a cozy little boutique than under the fluorescent lights at Michael’s.

They have a “sampling wall” where you can borrow a pair of needles and whip up a little swatch of whatever you have your eye on. Don’t you just want to pull up a rocking chair?

This afghan of sorts made by Judy Kornblum is made from a combination of yarn and re-purposed plastic. Not sure it’s very cozy, but it looks good hanging on a wall.

My favorite part of visiting the Lion Brand Store though is seeing some of their free knitting and crocheting patterns in action. They offer like a gazillion free patterns, but it’s sooooo helpful to be able to size up the look and feel of an actual garment instead of just a grainy photo in a PDF. I think this little knit hankerscarf (no, it’s not called that, but it seems like a combo of a handkerchief and a scarf, don’t you think?)  might have to be my next project (in 2014, when I finish my Beekeeper’s Quilt.)

There’s nothing like stroking some skeins of yarn to make a girl forget her sleep-deprived angst. I dashed out of the Lion Brand Store feeling much more windshied-y than bug-y and headed to the airport, clutching my PRINTED boarding pass for dear life.