One of the advantages of having a local crochet club is that you get to go out to lunch and on field trips with other crochet addicts. Another local group is also having their second ‘pajama party’ soon. This field trip was enjoyed by me (jd), Ronnie, Cindy, and Norma from MO and Lee, Vicki, and Debbie from Illinois. We all first met via Crochet Partners on the internet, some as long ago as 1999 when I first had the idea to ask others to join me in a crochet club.
Yesterday (June2), our little group trekked across the Mississippi River to what is known as the Metro East area of St. Louis. We used to do this more often when we didn’t have our own Hobby Lobby stores and we had to drive those 30+ miles to the nearest one. We started a tradition of eating and shopping. This tradition endures despite the current accessibility of Hobby Lobby (I can walk to one!). But, this particular occasion was a gathering to bid adieu to one of our Illinois members, Lee, who is moving to the Washington, D.C. area. The good news for the rest of us is that since Lee has kids in the area, we know she’ll be around here again and we’ll all get together again.
We ate, had a bit of show and tell (Ronnie’s bags and Debbie’s layette were stand-outs), and Vicki gave all of us green ink pens to which she had attached her own tiny crocheted orchids.
So, what did we do on this trip? The three gals from Illinois and four of us from St. Louis met at our usual haunt, Lottawatta Creek, for lunch. If you want portions that will feed a family of four, mostly fried, this is the place for you! It’s pretty tasty stuff, if too much to eat. Then we stuffed ourselves into two cars to drive to the nearby strip mall which houses HL and Joann’s. We all belong to HL’s online site and to Joann’s mailers, so we had our coupons in hand. The good news about Joann’s is that they accept competitor’s coupons so my 50% Michael’s coupon was good too.
This is what I bought with one of my 40% off coupons:
With 6 of us and 5 shopping carts, we strolled the yarn aisles, checking out hooks, patterns, freebies, etc. Cindy (who has lately forsaken crochet for quilting) had to cruise the fabric aisles too. And, of course, there are related things like jewelry, scrapbooking, and buttons which had to be inspected. We didn’t break the bank, but did come away with a nice haul.
And, of course, after all that heavy shopping we had to go out for dessert. We discovered Russell Stover’s Candy store also had ice cream, another group favorite. After we sated our desire for sugar and fat, we headed back to our own vehicles at Lottawatta Creek, and headed off in all directions for home.
