Richfield riches -- Cornerstone Yarns

On the 1st, while sipping coffee in Kent and filling out my TNNA renewal form, I phoned my buddy Rick in Ann Arbor to wish him a happy spin off.

At the office in San Diego a celebration with Aloha shirts and dunk the leadership team was organised so I figured I should at least phone a fellow employee.

Since my plans were very fluid we'd had some discussion about a possible swing up that way so I could finally meet the wife and daughters.

Logistics and schedules didn't work out but it was good to chat and given how up in the air things had been when I left San Diego it was good to have a backup plan.

As part of my getting my bearings and generally enjoying the colours of the area, I ended up swinging back into Richfield and having a chance to check out Cornerstone Yarns.

The shop owner, Kathy, is a long time spinner and has owned the shop for about three years now. It is a beautiful shop, very well laid out and full of lots of nice natural fibres. It's web page doesn't do it justice and Kathy's a delight.

I didn't buy anything although her hand spun was pretty tempting -- cashmere, merino & silk oh my.

She's open six days a week and I love the idea of offering "at your own pace" classes. Spinning classes are also available by appointment.

Since she wasn't very busy when I came through, besides the visiting and knitting, she got a mini Russian Grafting lesson and a mediocre session on Continental knitting & purling.

I may still not be expert with continental but now that I understand the process, I can at least demo it even if it isn't my preferred method.

I could be wrong, memory being not as good as it could be, but I think that I was still reswatching with the baby brush alpaca and 8-ply superwash and had begun the long promised green legwarmers.

I had a bit of a surprise on Sunday when I discovered that the love affair with pink for the younger of my Hudson honeys had diminished since my last visit. Not a big deal but the shift into the green zone combined with the limited amount of green Cotton Rich and Bamboo in the Parrot colourway had me concerned that I'd not enough of the right yarns to get both pairs of legwarmers at least started if not finished while I was on site.

That concern is my excuse for a bit of yarn crawling while in Ohio even though I'd packed yarn and projected earmarked to stay or at least return to Ohio.

I left Richfield and made my way up to Cedar/Fairmount where I discovered that my parallel parking skills have really tanked. I browsed the bookstore and wine shop and phoned Borjana & Barney to try to arrange our visit before taking the knitting in to Nightown for an ice tea while waiting for the Eileen and the girls.

The spitting that had started when I was window shopping and taking stock of changes had turned to serious down pour by the time we connected and Abby was looking like the threatening cold was winning. Although my long time fave ribs were on the menu for the night, I went with the duck salad and the sometimes gruelish clam chowder (we used to order it with a pitcher of cream and a shot of brandy to thin it out).

I did get a bit turned about on the drive home at the traffic circle/round about by John Carroll but even in the rain and in a rental car, driving's easier back there and it really isn't a density difference.