10 hours driving hurts my knee

The trip to Toronto went well. I managed to hit up more yarn stores than I thought I would. The Naked Sheep, the Purple Purl, Romni Wools, and Lettuce Knits.

Bought older copies of Knitter's that I didn't yet have for less than half-price at the Purple Purl, plus got an AWESOME reusable bag in bright purple with the sale.

Bought some more Classic AL (teal this time) at Romni. Their basement is great now, and the guy who was down there, organising it all, was really nice and helpful. Mum picked up 3 crochet books, ALL of which have actual wearable stuff in them, which shocked me. I'm not normally a fan of crochet, as to date there's still not been enough modernising of the styles. Crochet Me was the only one I knew of beforehand that had some nice stuff, but she also bought Positively Crochet, which alongside some of the dumb granny-square style things, also had some very nice patterns in it. She also bought Today's Crochet, which also has some nice patterns, but not quite as modern as the other two, but still nice simple, clean looking ones, sans granny-squares and crocheted flowers.

Finally I got to Lettuce Knits, and in chatting with the salesgirl, found out about Berocco's Ultra Alpaca, which has incredible yardage (400 per skein) for a fingering weight, and it's very very cheap ($12), and isn't terribly scratchy either. I plan on using this for Pretty as a Peacock.

I would have gotten to two more stores had they been open in the morning. Instead I got to drive through a construction ridden area in a terrible rainstorm, only to discover neither was open! Fun times...

I also got to spend some time with my best friend who moved to Toronto this summer to work, AND got to become an inside source for a documentary for CBC next fall.

In other news, I finally got my camera to work for long enough to take a series of photos of my projects, both finished and on the go, and a big chunk of my stash, which was terribly exciting. Now I've finally got pictures of my projects up on ravelry, as well as many more stash yarns!

In even more exciting news, I went to my first Knit-night ever last night. It's been nearly 5 years in the making. I have joined the list a few times, and had great plans, but always either forgot, went to bed before it began, was otherwise occupied, or in one of my non-knitting phases. Last night, I found myself clean, dressed, in a knitting phase, and remembering I had an email reminder about it, so I went to Bridgehead and met 5 very nice women, none of them more than 5 years older at most. I added a few of them to ravelry when I got home, because I'm silly that way.

Now off to watch some tv, and keep knitting my afghan square!

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! #^&!!!!!!!)