It Was the Best of Times...

Photo above: Jo Ann Bartholomew, Head Knit Wit; Photo below: Two members of the Langworthy Knitters calmly surveying the Table of Treasures.

Those of us whose childhood traumas include the communal dressing room at Loehmann's are not merely survivors, we are Shoppers. And we became Shoppers by learning how to maken vertue of necessitie, as Chaucer so neatly put it. Keen observation of Highly Determined Women (aka our mothers) behaving like predatory beasts--the prey being deeply discounted designer duds--and of monstrous saleswomen loudly offering unsolicited opinions-- ("Honey, that Chanel is gapping at the bust--you need a 16, at least.")--taught us how to move into and out of the fray before anyone actually realized we were there and gone. Stealth is the key to all successful shopping, (as well as to the procurement of limited seating on public transit).

My long-dormant shopping instincts--veritably comatose since I'd left the Big Apple in the 1970s--were awakened on Saturday morning, when I hit the Summer Sale at Knit Wits in Westerly. Several members of the Langworthy Library Knitting Association arrived shortly after I did, but I could tell, from their refined perusal of the Bargain Table, that they had been raised in civilized society. Here was the deal: you grabbed a bag, and as much as you could stuff into it could be had for $25. Adrenalin pulsing, I immediately set about amassing the most beauteous yarns I could lay hands on. About 10 minutes later I was done. It was a superb haul--by the most conservative estimate, around $300 worth of stuff, including 13 skeins of bamboo yarn (celadon, butter, black, slate blue), 5 skeins of oatmeal-tweedy Khatmandu DK (85% merino, 10% silk, 5% cashmere), 5 skeins of Classic Elite mohair in raspberry ombre, and so on and so forth (to spare you my insufferable gloating I shall cease forthwith). But what joy and, indeed, rapture!