Thursday, February 15, 2007

Seriously...the Yarn!

The town we visited, Rovereto, doesn't so much have yarn shops as Haberdasheries. A general handy-work shop, heavy with fabric, buttons, stitching arts like cross-stitch and that stuff they do with silk thread that looks so cool on pillows and wall hangings. The first yarn we found in a fabric shop. There was a small bookcase with wool and alpaca-wool skeins. Believe it or not, the 100% wool was softer than the alpaca mixes. I was delighted and bought some skeins for a hat, possibly baby jacket.

The next shop we found was button-heavy and had a lot of mohair (by a lot I mean 3 different kinds) and one color-way from Regia. And the counter top had a huge basket of mixed colorways of this stuff. 100% wool, 200g skeins for 8Euro, super soft and screaming to come home with me. Who could say no? I think it wants to be a fiery, sassy sweater with a big, comfy (and totally squashy) turtle-neck.

The last store, we saw on our way to dinner one night and I pretended to go for a healthy little walk the next afternoon so I could check it out. First task was wading through the store's other wares (gorgeous leather purses, handbags and fabulous little hats and scarves, poor me!) to find fthe largest wool stash in Rovereto. Seriously, he must have had like 2 whole bookcases of yarn!
First, the sock yarn, I had seen the evening before and immediately grabbed a couple for the obligatory stash enhancement (50% wool, 50% meraklon(??) 100g and 300meters - am thinking boot socks) :

The next caught my eye and wouldn't let me go. I think it's the first lace-weight I've seen in my life (that wasn't mohair). It is possibly the softest, squishiest, most delicate wool I've ever seen. 1500 meters, baby (and for some random, reason, matching lace-weight mohair)! That means I should be knitting something lacey with it, no?
But I'm not exactly laden down with lace experience or books. This is where you, my dear friends, collective experience, knowledge and wisdom of many, come in.

If you were to recommend only one lace book to someone going for a 2 year stint on the International Space Station, which would you recommend???

4 comments:

  1. Gee, maybe I should have thrown some euros at you. Great haul!

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  2. I think now I'd have to recommend the Victorian Lace Today book. Lots of history and construction info - so there's patterns AND it teaches you how to come up with your own stuff.

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  3. Erica, tell me about it. 8 Euros for 200g? That's a steal. Did you rob the store?

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  4. I should have! The lace weight was also 8 Euro (but only for 100g). If they had taken credit cards, I would have been in real trouble!

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