Been to lots of knitting stores over the past week! Whew! Visited some good ones, and not so good ones. Have to say I was kind of disappointed in the NYC ones I visited, but very impressed with Rosie’s Yarn Cellar in Philly. Very nice selection and wonderful help. The place was small (and packed in the middle of a Monday!) but overflowing with good feelings. Not what I’ve come to expect from yarn stores. Sad, isn’t it? I walked away with a ball of Calmer (I think this will be the yarn for my yet to be born niece or nephew’s blanket) and five balls of Valeria di Roma Angora. This was completely an impulse buy for a scarf I want to knit from the Vogue On the Go Scarves book. Silly me, I don’t have nearly enough (that’s what you get for buying yarn without the pattern in hand) and I don’t think it will work out anyway, so now I have five balls of expensive angora. I’m thinking a lacy scarf or something. It’s available at elann.com for about half the price, but I don’t think I want more.
And then I came home to my big box of Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran! The Knitting Garden is amazing! I ordered the stuff on Friday and there it was bright and early Monday morning! Free shipping too! I will definitely shop there again. Thank you!
I was silly and didn’t gauge first – instead I cast on 159 stitches and finished the 1×1 ribbing on the vest. Ugh. It was way, way too long. So I took it all out and started to gauge instead. The yarn is interesting. At first I didn’t think I liked it – it’s pilly a little bit – but soft, and once I had a bunch of rows done I think it almost feels a little bit like a sweat shirt. A felted sweat shirt. But I think Georgie will like it – he seemed to like the swatch I had knitted and I told him I thought it would only get softer with wear. So today I’ll figure out the right measurements (god I hate the MATH involved in knitting!) and start again. I need the project on the needles. I need something in progress. It’s funny though – it’s so different from the Wool/Cotton I was knitting with. That had a sheen to it and was much silkier – the Silkroad is flatter and duller. Hope that makes sense.
I also ordered some Koigu KPM for the scarf in the Vogue book. That’s what they call for and since everyone raves about Koigu, I thought I’d try it. I ordered it from Patternworks in what I think it is an ice blue kind of color (#2171). We’ll see. I’m excited about the scarf. It’s a geometric pattern and I’m going to put little beads on the end. I really just like the pattern. If I could figure it out, I think it would make a really neat blanket.
Oh and I took pictures of the kids in their sweater and poncho. I’ll post those later as right now I must do some work….
