New England's at the verge of autumn, the season I love most for so many reasons, not the least of which is the pleasure of knitting wool when it isn't blazingly hot. We had a miserable summer in terms of high humidity and temperatures, followed by the destructive rain and winds of Hurricane Irene, and now Tropical Storm Lee, which seems to be providing an entire week of rain and gloom. Autumn is yet two weeks away, but already there are signs...tinged foliage, browned leaves in the driveway, migrating birds, cooler evenings, dusty blue and pink asters and burgeoning goldenrod. School is again in session and yellow school buses incessantly rumble down the road. Everything is moving on.
There is an elegiac feel in the environment, bred from the turning of the seasons, the messy weather and the pervasive bad news churned out by the media, by politics, by unemployment statistics, by the impending tenth anniversary of 9/11. The other day I visited a LYS in Westerly that's going out of business on the 15th of September. It is a decent little shop, and I wrote about it in this blog two years ago, but the downtrodden economy apparently delivered the coup de grace. Inside the shop knitters pawed through discounted yarns and notions, and the owner was putting on a brave face, yet it was impossible not to feel the sadness. I asked her what she would do next and she said, "Maybe I'll be a waitress! I love working with people....but I will also do something creative; I have to keep that alive."
Although I was never a customer at Knitwits, I feel sad that the store is closing. I've been to the clearance sales of 2 yarn stores over the years, the Wool Connection in Avon, CT and the store that was in Moodus, CT (can't remember the name). It's a reminder to support our local yarn store when we can!
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