Staying Cool on a Very Hot Day

July has started out quite hot and miserable.   What better way to "keep cool" than doing a yarn crawl.  My friend Lisa and I headed off to hit a couple of yarn shops - Needles in a Haymarket  (Haymarket, VA) and Hunt Country Yarns (The Plains, VA) , a cupcake and sandwich shop - Cupcake Heaven and Cafe (Haymarket, VA),  and a coffee roaster - Weird Brothers Coffee (Herndon, Va).  It was an awesome day!  

At Needles in the Haymarket, I found the most awesome project bag - in purple (of course!).   I purchased it with the birthday $$ my mom had sent me.  I also found a really cool coffee mug - perfect for me!

Of course, to keep our energy up, we dined on sandwiches and a cupcake at Cupcake Heaven.   While there, I opened some birthday gifts from Lisa - two fabulous knitting books - "Classic Knit Shawls" and "Knitting Short Rows".   At Hunt Country Yarns, my big purchase was some Kauni EX yarn to craft the beautiful "Autumn Leaves Shawl" by Anna Stoklosa - made with knitted leaves.  This yarn morphs from greens through oranges and maroons...just like the leaves in the fall, so it's the perfect choice!

On the way home, we stopped at Weird Brothers Coffee in Herndon where I enjoyed a delicious cappuccino and purchased some whole bean coffee.  It was sooooo much better than Starbucks!   And....it's veteran owned.   I got to meet both the owner and his daughter - very nice people.  I'm a big supporter of eating and shopping locally.   All in all, it was a perfect day...in spite of the horrendous heat and the pop-up thunderstorm!