Lazy weekend with a side of yarn haul

This is my first uninterrupted long weekend in quite a while (since I usually teach on Saturdays).  I successfully avoided the Black Friday madness yesterday by staying home most of the day crocheting, inventing new turkey leftover dishes, and making the best batch of brownies ever.

MC and I have been avoiding high fructose corn syrup for some time now, which is actually kind of hard to do in a regular grocery store.  I decided to pick up all of my chocolate in the fancy organic part of Fairway to be on the safe side.  (Side note: It later turned out that good ole Nestle Toll House chips do not have high fructose corn syrup anyway!)  I was working with the banana brownie recipe from my all time favorite brownie cookbook, The Ultimate Brownie Book: Thousands of Ways to Make America’s Favorite Treat, including Blondies, Frostings, and Doctored Brownie Mixes by Bruce Weinstein.  I used Sunspire unsweetened baking chocolate and peanut butter chips along with some Endangered Species Chocolate dark chocolate, and an extra banana.  The brownies were so rich, we could only eat a few.  I’ll probably freeze most of the batch for later.  Yum!

I’ve been planning all week to do some local shopping today for Small Business Saturday.  It’s a sad fact that most of my favorite local stores closed in the last few years, so there are few options left.  Naturally, I took this opportunity to visit my two LYS.  I don’t actually need any yarn, but I went with two specific holiday projects in mind.

I stopped at The Yarn Company first (review here).  I did see some lovely yarn, especially some undyed alpaca that is exclusive to their shop.  Nothing was suitable for my projects though (or my limited budget), so I left without buying anything.

Though I’ve been avoiding the holiday shopping fervor, I did stop briefly into the Laytner’s Linen and Home adjacent to The Yarn Company.  I’m working on several free patterns in collaboration with Galler Yarns and I picked up a pillow form for one of the samples.

My next stop was my favorite LYS, Knitty City (reviewed here).

It was fairly crowded, but I did manage to find yarn suitable for my holiday projects.  I bought one skein of Cascade 220 Superwash in 817…

…and three skeins of Sandnes Garn Mandarin Petit in 4418.

I haven’t used this brand before, but the color was really red, which is exactly what I was looking for today.

One the way home, I stopped by the Greenflea, which is now open on Saturday for the holiday season.

This is one of those really hit or miss markets, where you might find a treasure but you are more likely to find vendors reading newspapers and tables stacked with random junk.  Today was a miss.

When I got home, there was an email in my inbox from American Express. My purchase at Knitty City qualified for the $25 credit for Small Business Saturday, so that was pretty sweet.

How’s your weekend going?

Reminders:

Looking for some great holiday gifts?  Check out my handmade holiday gift guides: Handmade Gifts to Make, Handmade Gifts to Buy, and Great Gifts for Yarncrafters.

There’s still time to enter my giveaway for 60 More Quick Knits in this blog post through November 28.

All items (including crochet patterns, finished objects, Tunisian crochet hooks, and yarn) in my Etsy shop and Ravelry shop will be 25% off through 11/28 as part of my Thanksgiving/Black Friday/Small Business Saturday/Cyber Monday sale.  I’m also offering these additional discounts for my blog readers:

• $2 off with a minimum $10 purchase on Ravelry using coupon code BLOG1111 (through 12/31/11) and
• $2 off with a minimum $10 purchase on Etsy (refunded after purchase) if you write BLOG1111 in the notes to seller.  Please note that patterns purchased on Etsy can be emailed or sent to your Ravelry pattern library.

Tags: alpaca, american express, baking, brownies, bruce weinstein, cascade 220 superwash, cascade yarns, cooking, crochet, endangered species chocolate, fairway, galler yarns, greenflea, knitty city, laytner's linen, nestle, sandnes garn, sandnes garn mandarin petit, small business saturday, sunspire, ultimate brownie book, yarn haul