Patterns and toronto

So, after my allergy shots yesterday, I ran a few errands. The last of these errands landed me on Innes Rd, and since I wasn't ready to go home yet (plus it was the beginning of rush hour, so the way to downtown would be hell), I decided to keep heading east, and ended up randomly picking major roads in Orleans, until I found myself on St. Joseph, and decided that since I'm all the way out here, why not head to Wool n' Things? I spent a good hour and a half looking through pattern books, and then the great big pattern binders. I was delighted by the pattern binders, and the fact that they have a really different selection than I found at the other 3 stores.

I bought Evening in Eden by cabin fever, a lace wrap that I plan on knitting as a scarf instead (half the repeats wide), since I just don't have that much yarn, plus with my attention span the project would have no chance otherwise! :P I think I'll use my cashsoft dk.

I also bought Fine Filigree Fingerlings by HeartStrings, gorgeous fingerless mitts. Oh so elegant and lovely!

Honestly, I really really need to stop going to yarn stores for a while, and actually knit at least one thing I have in full, BUT I'm headed to Toronto for a couple of days just after the weekend, so I'm bound to head to one of the stores. The only question is which.

I've been to Romni once, and was completely overwhelmed by it, but then it was in the middle of a massive heat wave, and their air-conditioning was broken, and I only knit with non-wool things at the time, so it's probably worth another visit. But I'm also tempted by Lettuce Knits, to which I've never been. I visited Passion Knit last fall, when I spent an entire day walking down yonge (from davisville through to somewhere ridiculously further north), but didn't really like it much.

Perhaps the Wool Mill if I go to visit my friend who now lives on Danforth? Or the Naked Sheep which has a sale on, PLUS has a knit-in in the afternoon on Tuesday? Oh boy, the choices!!!

I Am the Yarn Molester

I went to the Wool Tyme warehouse sale for the first time this morning. It was interesting to look, but I found most of the prices too high even at the discounted rates, and very little yarn that appealed to me anyways (with the except of the pure cashmere, which was half off at $19 a very small hank!) Most of the yarns were either cotton or really terribly scratchy icky wools. Perhaps because I do most of my yarn shopping at Knit-Knackers, and online, I expected the deep discount prices to be different, but instead they were consistent with what Knit-Knackers sells them for every day, and in fact I noticed a massive overlap in the specific brands, since Knit-Knackers mostly specializes in discontinued yarns.

So I drove downtown and went and molested yarn for a good hour or two at Knit-Knackers, and ended up coming home with 10 balls, 7 of which were London Tweed (needful yarns) in 4 different colours, since they didn't have many multiples in the same colour, and a couple of oddballs of aran-weight stuff for making more pairs of fetching.

Now it's time to get down to the task of sorting and stashing the new yarns, plus the bag of yarns we discovered we'd missed when doing a massive organizational of the stash (and the whole room). I should have stopped by Canadian Tire to buy some more plastic boxes, since I don't think I'll have enough room to fit the last of this in!

How to spend over $40 on ideas in one afternoon

Since I finished the Fetching, I've been trying to decide on what to knit next. As with many knitters, while I'm knitting something I want to cast on a trillion different projects, (and frequently do), but now that I'm done, nothing has quite felt right for the next project.

After spending many nights doing nothing but looking at patterns and rejecting them on Ravelry, I finally got up and dressed on Saturday morning and headed out to Wool Tyme where I spent a good hour or working my way around the store looking at patterns and molesting yarn. Finally I found the Great American Afghan and the Great American Aran Afghan books and bought them. I then stopped by Knit-Knackers on my way home, but miraculously left without any yarn at all!

Once home I went onto Ravelry once more and bought two patterns that had caught my eye: Nunt's Cabled Wristwarmers (which looks absolutely beautiful and elegant, and as a bonus the designer is REALLY nice and offered to help me if I need any while I'm working on them), and Pretty as a Peacock, which is the most beautiful lace piece I've ever seen, really clean and modern, not all frilly and flowery. I don't care that I've never knit lace before, and that this is a terrible choice for a first object, I'm in love! I've been searching for a smaller lace project to perhaps tackle before I attempt the shawl, but so far haven't found anything that appeals to me at all.

Now, time to go back to swearing at the afghan books for "place 28 increases evenly" (The reason I bought a bloody pattern was so that they would do all the figuring out FOR me! #^&!!!!!!!)