Cameliscious

This week has been tough at the shop. We have recieved some unbelievably beautiful yarns, and I am having to restrain myself. It is very difficult, you have to see for yourself. The first box to arrive was from Misti Alpacas. We have been waiting for the laceweight for ages. Alot of the colors have been on backorder for months. When the new color cards arrived, I fell in love with their Baby Suri alpaca and silk blend. It is so soft and silky. Nathalie agreed, and after some debate, we chose some lovely colors.



There was a lovely red one, but what a shock, it has all gone. The remaining ones are quite lovely as well, so don't feel as if you are missing out!

Next came Handmaiden box number one (number 2 due on Tuesday), full of Camelspin, yum!!! The colors are so rich. The last time we recieved this yarn, it lasted less than a week. This time we have ordered quite a bit more, so don't worry. Even the owner of Fleece Artist told me that she thinks this is their most beautiful yarn. Nathalie and I are in love. She is going to start a shawl this weekend in Peridot. I have settled on Amethyst, what a surprise, purple!



I am on the last pieces of my sweater, finally. Hope to finish next week and start a shawl. Any ideas for not too difficult lace using 900 meters?

Fibers

I've been doing a bit of spinning since that weekend a few weeks ago when I knit too much (is that possible?). It doens't make much sense for me to buy yarn since I see tons of gorgeous ones every day, and don't even have time to use all of them. What else is a girl to do but buy fiber on Etsy! Some of the Saturday ladies in the shop turned me on to this site. It is full of beautiful hand crafted items, and of course, yarn and knitting related things. I started searching for yarn and rovings a while back, and found Copperpot, which is the one that I was using below to Peruvian ply. I am nearly done with that one, hoping to finish the second spool today.

This is what arrived during the week:






The top two are like pillows of fluffiness, 100% Merino wool. The bottom two are a mix of Merino and Tussah silk. They are a little felted, but I think that if I fluff them up, they should be alright. Worth a try.

These three arrived in my husbands suitcase yesterday. I thought since he was in CT that I could save on the shipping. They come from Fat Cats, and look how beautifully they are presented. like skeins of yarn. One is Merino, one is superwash Merino, and one is Falklands wool. I can't stop looking at them!






They have great names like "Italian leather sofa", which is the reddish one.
Last but not least, I forgot this one the other day, my Trekking sock in front of the Duomo in Milan. Notice Roberta in the bottom left (in blue), on the telephone.

P.S. I forgot to mention that we have some new arrivals at the shop. Misti Alpacas has arrived in laceweight in new colors. We also have Baby suri alpaca silk. It is so soft, and the colors have the most beautiful silky sheen!

Weekend in Milan

This past weekend I took a weekend away from Stash, and London, and headed off to Milan with a few friends, one of whom is originally from there. The weather was beautiful, and the shopping was great. I did manage to find one shop that sold yarn, though most of it was cotton, plain but nice. Roberta managed to snap a photo of me before the saleslady realized it and told her that she was not allowed to take photos, who knows why.



Not a bad selection of colors, but otherwise nothing interesting. I did manage to buy a pattern book, in Italian of course, but the photos are nice, and there are some nice lace patterns that I'm sure I could figure out if I wanted to.

The food and gelato were heaven! Now its back to normal life, and the shop. We finally got a box of Knits from a Painters Palette, the Koigu book. It only took about 6 months since I asked the distributor to get it for me. She kept insisting that it wasn't published yet. Of course it has been available in the U.S. since some time late last year. Anyway, we have it now, and it is a beautiful book.

We have also decided to extend the sale one more week until this Saturday. We thought that there were some people who hadn't heard about it, so why not give them some more time to check it out.

On the knitting front, Hubby is away this week, so trying to get something accomplished on the Nashua Handknits sweater. Hoping to finish the back this week. I also saw this one on Knitty that I am going to make as we have the exact yarn in the shop, though it is made by GGH. I am going to do it in red. Off to swatch right now!

Peruvian Plying

Despite my lack of bobbins...the new ones were ordered, but still haven't arrived. Hmmm, don't want to mention any names, but some places are so slow around here! Hoping they arrive some time next week or I may have to carve them myself! Anyway, Diane taught me a new technique the other evening for plying up a small piece of spinning to see how it will look without changing bobbins. Scroll down on this page for an example, it is the one where you wind it onto your hand.
Here is what my sample looked like...



Then I knit it up, the first time I have ever knit anything I have spun. Thinking of doing a skein, and using it for the cuff on a bulky jacket that I have planned for the winter.



Next time I will try to take a photo of the yarn on my hand, but as it was my first time doing it alone, it was a bit tight, and my middle finger started to turn blue!

Off to start spinning more...