On Monday Smokey had an appointment at the VA clinic in Rice Lake, a smallish city (pop. 8,320) about 40 miles from here. (If the name sounds familiar it is because of the news story several years ago about the Vietnamese deer hunter from St. Paul who killed several local deer hunters there with an automatic weapon. Very sad story.)
Anyway.
After his appointment, during which I knit happily on the multicolored striped raglan and finished listening to Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers (excellent, btw), we had a generous lunch -- actually over-generous -- at a Chinese buffet and headed home.
On the way out of town I remembered that I wanted to check out this place.
I don't usually patronize places like this -- too much junk -- but a friend had told me they had dishcloth cotton and other yarn, so I wanted to see what they had.
It was huge inside, much bigger than I expected. This was about a third of the store.
Need a seat for your tractor?
How about an unmarked cookbook? Hardworking lawn gnome who brings his own shovel?
Do-it-yourself dental equipment, under two dollars!
Oooh, a sparkly!
The craft section was as big as the part in the second photo above. There were buttons, but not for playing.
And beads. Apparently it was okay to play in the beads.
The yarn section was generous, but very disappointing. So disappointing, in fact, that I didn't bother to take a photo.
I do not think there is any justification for calling an acrylic/polyester blend eco-anything; I don't care if some of it is recycled.
The only wool yarn they had was Lopi and Lite Lopi, two yarns that are horrible in the hand. Several years ago I knit a Dulaan pullover of Lite Lopi and hated the feel of it; Lit Lopi = twine, imnsho.
Clara Parkes says it is good for outerwear, which is probably true. Harsh yarn = hard-wearing garment. In any case, the Lopi appears to be at least a dollar per skein cheaper here than elsewhere. There was one more stack of bins of earth tones -- browns, gray, white, black. If anybody needs some Lopi, Bargain Bill's in Rice Lake is your kinda place!
