22 January 2009

Yarn Tourism

OK. Let's forget the horrific holiday homecoming (alliteration!) and concentrate on the important stuff. The Yarn.

After the Romni Boxing Day sale, I swore off yarn purchases. My stash is certainly large enough to last many, many years. However, we all know that yarn purchased while travelling is an exception, so off I went in search of local flavour.
I'd been to Beehive before, the large shop on Douglas Street. It's very nice and has a huge selection, but I was disappointed to find nothing I hadn't seen before. It seems silly to travel to the West coast and buy Fleece Artist. Then I stumbled upon Button and Needlework Boutique on View Street and I hit the jackpot.


What a delight. They define themselves as an embellishment establishment (more alliteration) and there are two walls of gorgeous buttons, but they also have a beautiful knitting section.

Kelly had been raving about Indigo Moon of Gabriola Island BC, and now I know why. I wish my photo better portrayed the depth of colour and luminosity of this green silk. It's 1000 metres of shimmering heaven that will someday become the perfect stole. Until the right pattern presents itself, I think I'll just keep the skein under glass and admire it every day. I also bought a hand dyed sock yarn in shades of taupe and cocoa but so far have been unable to photograph it successfully.


I also picked up two lovely balls of Lanaknits Designs hempwol. Yes I can probably get it here but I fell in love with the heather tones and earthy feel of the stuff. These will likely become mittens. There were some tempting kits that wanted to follow me home as well, but I resisted.
As a bonus, if you look just above the centre of the right skein, you can glimpse one of many lovely holes in my wall.

3 comments:

alt.ayu said...

wow the yarns look wonderful!! I'm especially in love with the hempwol~ I have been loving heathers for awhile hehe

knitterbeader said...

Several years ago I visited the Button & Needlework Boutique when I was still doing counted cross stitch. What a wonderful place & real nice owners, too. Didn't know they had yarn (not sure they did then), so now I have a good excuse to go to Victoria again.

knitterbeader said...

That is funny that we're both doing the "slouch". It knit up pretty fast and people commented it looked like cables (and actually was much easier than cables). I didn't like mine until I blocked it on the dinner plate (not enough slouch). I'm not much of a hat person, but it's OK. As for the weather, we've now had fog for days and days - getting claustrophobic (sp?). I've added your blog to my list I follow.