Frolicking with Knitters

I have been doing a lot of knitting and stash-building lately. Last weekend Marion and I headed out for a yarn crawl. We visited Unwind Yarn House and Serenity Knits in Newmarket - both lovely yarn shops with lots of selection. We also visited On the Lamb in Uxbridge and Ferguson's in Myrtle Station. This is what I picked up:

Some Nashua 75/25 wool/alpaca worsted yarn,

















Austermann Step solid-coloured sock yarn,

















2 skeins of shiny Linares cotton/viscose yarn,

















and Drops cotton/viscose yarn from which I'm knitting Vickie's Flower (and Leaves) Shawl.

















At the Sit 'n Knit at Kniterary, we discovered a couple of errors in Vickie's pattern which necessitated my frogging the whole thing even though I had just finished the first ball of yarn and had attached the second. However, after frogging, and re-knitting, it looks much better using the centre decrease (sl2tog, k1, p2sso). Until this event, I had no idea how important the type of decrease being used was.

Yesterday, at the Knitter's Frolic I picked up a skein of lavender Soy Silk yarn,
















a skein of Sea Wool - 70/30 superwash merino seacell,
















a skein of Classic Elite Silky Alpaca Lace yarn and matching beads and also a spool of 2/8 tencel with which I'm going to double to knit a stole.

















I bought the Fiddlesticks Peacock Feather stole pattern, too.





















Lettuce Knit was selling off a bunch of books and magazines at 5 for $10 so I picked these up, too.

















Shall We Knit also sold me a bag of 5 balls of Debbie Bliss DK oatmeal-coloured merino.

It looks like a lot but I usually only buy yarn on sale under regular circumstances. However, the Knitter's Frolic, like Christmas, comes but once a year. Now to tackle some UFOs and get my new projects started. I'm in the process of putting each project in a big ziploc bag so I can just grab it and start to knit when the mood strikes. Sticky notes are invaluable for identifying which row I'm on in the pattern.

I think I'm pretty well stocked up on yarn for a while. Some other time I'll elaborate on a stash-busting project I'm working on.