Stash Enhancement

While I was working in Roanoke, VA this week, I managed to make time to spend almost an hour at a wonderful yarn store: Yarn Explosion. (http://www.yarnexplosion.com/). A very friendly lady -- one of the three owners -- greeted me and showed me the layout of the store and we chatted a bit as I looked at all the fabulous yarns. They have lots of knitting yarn, a good amount of needlepoint supplies, and some smocking supplies, too. They only opened in October 2008. They had more Noro silk garden sock yarn than I had ever seen in one place, so I picked up two skeins either to knit another clapotis or something similar -- maybe a Sunday Market Shawl. I also picked up two skeins of Ella Rae laceweight merino in a beautiful colorway mingling turquoise blues and browns that reminded me of the southwest. This is a yarn that I don't remember seeing before. And I picked up two skeins of local hand-dyed yarn from a place called Unplanned Peacock Studio (http://www.unplannedpeacock.com/) -- one laceweight silk and merino in a pink colorway called hummingbird and the other some fingering weight superwash merino and nylon (sock yarn . . . but I am thinking it also might be good for something else) in a mostly pink with some blue colorway called lobelia. Even the bag was great: a translucent plastic shopping bag with colorful stripes and circles. Who could fail to be happy after this shopping experience? I would highly recommend this shop.