brainylady

I can't sleep, so I'm going to try to cover a bunch of the knitting-related stuff I want to tell you.

1. Oui, c'est vrai! I did indeed meet ~Jo~ and Veronik in Montreal a few days back. (And I swear on a stack of Debbie Bliss cashmerino that I didn't tell Veronik how many fish I caught!) We had a lovely few hours together that involved coffee and pastries, a pile of old Interweave Knits mags, and opinionated discussions of various knitting patterns. It was a huge treat for me.

2. Yarn stores overwhelm me (part one). Also while in Montreal, I went to a yarn store called A la tricoteuse. So much yarn! I was with a friend and we were hungry, so I zeroed in on the sock yarns and bought two balls of Regia mini-ringel in a green-based colourway. I was actually pretty successful at ignoring all the myriad other yarns. Alas, my indifference was soon to falter.

3. Yarn stores overwhelm me (part two). On Friday, Bill and I went to Toronto for the afternoon, and I went to Romni Wools. I wandered around like a zombie for a while and left empty-handed -- and bummed out, actually. Of course I should've had a specific pattern with me. I did remember that the pattern for Sitcom Chic calls for Lion Brand Cotton-Ease; I asked about that yarn, but the guy working just shrugged. (He actually just shrugged. I found that a bit weird.) Anyway, it was cool to see lots of the yarns that I've read about: Rowan, Noro, Debbie Bliss, etc. The store's Web site actually says that one will find "a bewildering variety" of yarns; I'll vouch for that.

4. Yarn stores overwhelm me (part three). We're staying with Bill's parents in Ancaster (a 'burb of Hamilton, Ontario), and today I went to the lovely Needle Emporium. Did I learn my lesson at Romni and bring a pattern to the store? Well, that's a negative. Once again, I fawned over all the beautiful balls of yarn. (They had everything.) Once again, I didn't buy anything.

5. Crappy craft stores, on the other hand... Have I mentioned in the past that I'm cheap? This is something that I'm working on, but I still hate to part with my money. I went to a big craft-supply store today and picked up yarn for a few different projects: a few pairs of socks' worth, a fuzzy scarf's worth, a toddler sweater's worth. That made me happy. Fancy yarn stores are beautiful, but let's face it, fancy stores make me nervous. Crappy craft stores are my kind of people.

6. Books + yarn = good times. I almost forgot this one. Rewind back to Montreal. Another friend took me to a used-book store whose back corner contains shelves of yarn. How good is that? I want to make myself a striped sweater, so I chose five colours of Patons Canadiana. Marlo and I had the shop owner take our picture in front of the wall o' yarn; he said, "You know, you aren't the first to have me do this." It made me happy to think that other people are out there having their photos taken among yarn.

7. Me + Vintage Knits = drooling. I bought Vintage Knits today, and I'm in love. I want to make a lot of these patterns. I'll pick one in the morning and see if I can find some appropriate yarn. I'm leaning towards the pretty ribbed camisole. We'll see. Has anyone made any of the vintage knits?

8. Mooky! OK, enough with the knitting. The aforementioned Marlo is my kitty's foster mommy. While Bill and I are in Taiwan, Mooky is living with Marlo and her partner. I stayed at their place, so I got to Mook out! It was sooo good to see him. No, I'm sure he didn't recognize me (it's been over a year and a half). But I was very happy to find him as soft and shiny and affectionate and happy as ever. I took a few pictures (which is really all you can do with a black cat -- every picture looks exactly the same!), so I will post them when I get home next week.

OK, it's 2:00 a.m. I'm going to give sleep another go. If I don't post again tomorrow, I'll catch you on the flipside. We fly out of Toronto on Monday and arrive in Taipei on Wednesday (that zany International Date Line!). Bon weekend!