Contest starts tomorrow!

I have barely knit a stitch for over a month.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to finish a pair of 2x2 rib socks...so long, in fact, that I can't bring myself to tell you just how long it was.

Sad.

In order to cheer myself up, or perhaps to remind myself that I am still a knitter while I play Baker for the summer, I made plans to visit the Yarnpimp while in Gloucester last week.

And so I found myself wandering into Coveted Yarn, in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Gloucester ROCKS, by the way. If you are within an hour's drive of it, it is a must- do trip. I went to High School in Peabody, Bishop Fenwick to be exact, and hung out in Gloucester quite a bit.

Love, Love, Love it there.

It's a lot like my little island here in Maine, except it's much bigger, and you know, there's the fact that when you get sick of everybody you can just drive away.

Coveted Yarn is that inviting kind of yarn shop where you can spend an entire afternoon and not be in the way.

(Oh, come on! I'm not the only one who does that, am I? I once brought bagged lunches for my kids. That was at Shirley's, in Ellsworth, Maine. Those girls have a LOT of patience.)

And I would have spent the entire evening with Robert in Coveted Yarn, if there weren't a carload of people waiting for me in the parking lot. And one of them was Daddy. You do not keep Daddy waiting.

I knew I was in trouble just looking at Robert's (aka yarnpimp) website, which I've been ogling for months.

There are a lot of names, there. Seems like a lot of yarn.

And it is.

I walked into that store, and before I could get to Robert, my eyes were darting back and forth over the walls, taking stock.

Two steps in, and it began. My hands began to shake.

By the time I got to Robert, and began talking, I was all but laughing out loud; I know I was grinning from ear to ear.

I was in Heaven!

It must have been the wool fumes, intoxicating as they were; I was all but slurring in moments.

I wandered around the store, petting yarn in a drunken stupor, when the Yarnpimp sprang into action.

He began pulling out skeins of alpaca, waving them under my nose like Opium.

It had the desired effect. I was spellbound.

He went for some merino lace, and snatched it away before I drooled on it.

H rubbed something named Siam, from Italy, against my arm and I knew I would not live long without more of that feeling.

He flashed something shiny at me, and all I could think of was the children's story "Rainbow Fish".

That did it, snapped me out of the hazy fog I was in.

"Come back here! What is that? The shiny one, that looks like Rainbow Fish, what is that??!"

He lead me over to the wall to something called Merletto, by Louisa Harding.

Oh, my.

And there was a scarf, there by the skeins of Merletto. In green and blue, looking for all the world like the ocean. Waves in the ocean.

(Would you believe it was the Drop Stitch Scarf- the very first pattern I ever queued in Ravelry, and the very scarf that Kathy, in Oregon, knitted for me? Serendipity, indeed. I love that scarf. Thank You again, Kathy!)

And I thought, 'This must be shared with the world at large'.

I think things like that. I'm thoughtful that way.

And thus, this contest was born. Because I don't have the time to knit the things I want to, so I will enable you guys, and you will show these things to me. And when I need to feel yarn, I will go visit Robert, and he pluck things from his walls that make me swoon, and I can go back to my Mother's with glazed eyes, and she will say things like, "Your children are watching you! Compose yourself!"

I'm not sure, but I think she is not entirely happy with Coveted Yarn.

Non-knitters, they just don't get it.

She was smelling me when I got in the car. I felt like a teenager again.

I won't share what my Dad said. I made them very late for dinner. Me, in a nutshell.

Who says you can't go home again?

can I tell you I just want to roll around in that pile of yarny goodness?

The contest begins Wednesday morning. It is a very, very difficult contest.
Entries will be based on...um, visiting my blog. Subscribing, to be exact. Following, even.

And then you must visit Robert. Not because I want you to...trust me, because you will be glad you did.
It's summer. I need you all to be relaxed and knitting, so that I may live vicariously through you.
All I ask is that you continue to share the lovely things you make with me.

I'm easy.

Don't tell my husband.

Get a second entry for blogging about the contest. (Come back and tell me about it with a link.)

Get a third entry for signing up for the Coveted Yarn Newsletter.

And a fourth entry for following me on Twitter (Maine Moxie).

Good Luck!