A visit to a yarn store…

Oh goodness me I had a nice day! I started by doing nothing for the morning: a coffee with real cream in it while watching Saturday Kitchen (I do rather like James Martin). I did a little housework (only a little, I am after all not a domestic goddess by any stretch) then I went and picked up my nearly eight year old niece J for a trip to the town five or so miles away from where we live. I had to return a pair of shoes I’d thought were a great decision but which turned out to be enormous on me (no, I have no idea why I bought them either).

J was with me two weeks ago when I bought them in Evans and we’d had a great time buying lots of costume jewellery that had been reduced to £2 each. Today we did the same thing again – she was delighted to find a ‘J’ on a chain – and I added a couple of things to my Christmas present box.

We then went to find the fabric & yarn store I’d heard about. It was great, completely different to my favourite yarn store in my home town (which is tiny and packed to the rafters with all sorts of gorgeous & often expensive stuff), had a completely different range of stuff. I went a little mad…

We started by choosing some red gingham ribbon and some yellow spotty ribbon for J to tie round her pigtails for school. J also found two flower buttons she liked and because I’m a doting aunt we got those too.

I hadn’t previously heard of the brand Katia but I really enjoyed browsing their ranges. I started with a couple of balls of two ply. J told me she’d like a shawl…. I’m a sucker – she’s 8 in two weeks and I’ve agreed to knit her a lace shawl. In 2 ply…

Jaipur is a mercerised cotton. The drape will be fabulous.

We then found a cotton Katia yarn I fell in love with. Meet Tucan:

I can’t wait to knit with this! I love the colours! My Mum can’t wear wool, so this is destined to be a simple cardigan. You don’t need a fancy pattern with something that fab!

J then found a reduced box of Patons Mirage DK which she decided was lovely. I hadn’t come across the yarn before – its 50% bamboo, 50% cotton – but it feels really nice and I know it’s going to be lovely to knit with. So we raided the Patons pattern drawer and found a great pattern for a knitted lace dress/ tunic in her size in a book. So we had that and the yarn. J loves hand knitted stuff – which I why I knit her such a lot of stuff – in fact she always asks me to make her something knitted for Christmas, if I ever enquire what she’d like.

This is the yarn we chose:

It looks cream, green and blue but it also goes into shades of purple. Will make a fab tunic.

Then we found a ‘how to knit’ book for J, chose a ball of pink wool to get her started; decided against the plastic kids needles; found some sewing up needles for me; decided we wouldn’t pay £12.50 for some ribbon J thought I’d like; got distracted by the snail tape measures (we added a pink one for me and a green one for my Mum to our enormous pile) and I imagine tried the patience of our helpful shop assistant!

On my way back from one of these distractions I saw this:

I couldn’t resist it – I don’t know if it’s destined for socks or a shawl but I had to have it!

I forked out over £100 for that little session (so much for the not buying yarn while my stash is so large) and the shop assistant must have thought J was thoroughly indulged as I basically bought everything she suggested we should buy… The truth is, it wasn’t anything to do with J – I wanted to buy yarn and she gave me an excuse!

After they’d seen us off the premises (probably heaving a huge sigh of relief) I treated J to a hot chocolate before I took her home. I got back to find the husband (who works nights) had just got up, so we spent the evening together. And while he was catching up on sport I updated my Ravelry account.

Nice.