sunny saturday stroll

 it was such a beautiful day that i went for a walk to the east village to downtown yarns, and then up to the cooking store whisk to pick up a water bottle they had on hold (earthlust brand, black with a squirrel motif), and then to whole foods in chelsea to pick up a few items for dinner. it felt like everyone was in a good mood and happy to be out in the sunshine.

 university and ninth street . . 

 ninth street and stuyvesant street . . 

 tompkins square park . . 

 downtown yarns on avenue a . . one of the few yarn stores to still really be supported by neighborhood folk and not social media. they have an instagram account that announced that today was "local yarn store day," but all the customers who came in were unaware of that . . it was just me!

 malabrigo and madelinetosh yarn skeins . . 

 i considered these for the free berocco yarn shawl pattern they were handing out . . 

 but these koigu skeins won out instead. i'm great at picking out projects, but terrible and implementing them. i'm too much of a dreamer. i think i need to work in a yarn store so i can help others find projects, and not myself.

 rita, the owner, always has a lovely window display.

 the girls and i have been going here for years and it's nice to always see the same beautiful faces: rita and lettie. today i also met mia, who has only been working in the store for a few months. rita also has a big dog named zack who is now four years old. her other dog died around the same time as jack. rita and zack were upstate this weekend, and lettie and mia were holding down the fort.

i didn't take a picture of it, but on the right is the most gorgeous display of brown sheep lambs pride yarn, bulky and worsted. today they had a range of pinks and purples . . it was so bright and cheery. lambs pride was the main reason we started going to downtown yarns, as we used it all the time for our waldorf knitting projects. how wonderful it was to go to a store and pick out the colors for ourselves!

 back out on the street again, i walked up to the cooking store, whisk, on broadway and 22nd street . .

 and then passed by madison square park on my way to whole foods in chelsea.

 a callery pear tree on 23rd street . . 

 and a magnolia back in the neighborhood . . 

at our new park on seventh avenue and greenwich avenue.

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so for dinner we had fried rice with green peppers, celery, carrots, spring onions, garlic, ginger and leftover chicken (and braggs and tamari). it was a bit more like risotto since we used freshly made rice. chanda and i had just watched a cooking show with david chang, and she knowingly pointed out that the fried rice should have been made with leftover dried out rice. oh well! it was still good.