Heaven is a place on earth...

Yes, indeed, and it's in the unlikely location of a small industrial estate in Sydenham, on the outskirts of Leamington Spa. Finally managed to visit the Wool Warehouse, where my friend M has a saturday job (yes, I am jealous, but in the nicest possible way). Rugby is pretty much a yarn desert. There's Pat's Wools, which is a tiny corner shop of acrylic. There's the Mill Outlet in Dunchurch. And there's a small selection at Dunelm. That's it.

Wool Warehouse have got Stylecraft, Rico, Rowan, sock yarns (must go back for those!), Artesano, Bergere to name but a few. They also carry Knitpro needles and Clover hooks, and tunisian crochet hooks, which are often hard to find "in the flesh". I was in heaven, I tell you! It took me back to the wonderful heyday of knitting in the 80s, when Mum took me to a massive warehouse  - it's now the site of Ikea in Coventry but back then was Webster's Wools. I wonder whether the warehouse was originally part of the GPT complex? The one they knocked down and then declared it had been a fine example of industrial use of natural light (it had a lot of windows). Of course, at that time I was small and not at all interested in knitting. How times change! 

Taught M and another lady how to do foundation crochet - I learnt from "Chain-free Crochet" by Belinda Carter, an Annie's Attic publication that might be out of print now. Now that I am no longer on a yarn diet - but trying to buy yarn for a purpose - it's come to my attention that actually I only own two long-sleeved jumpers, and both of them I bought in Sainsburys. This will not do! The heating packed up at work last week (a fried circuit board apparently) so I've become acutely aware of my lack of jumperage. Most of the ones I've knitted have short sleeves, because I tend to get too hot and don't always have enough of the yarn in question. There are a few long-sleeved jumpers on my Rav projects page, but I think I must have donated them to charity. 


Incredible range of sewing cottons here


Love this crocheted throw! So cheerful!


Notions and yarn


Oh my god, it's full of yaaaaaaarnnnnnn......

Of course, as January is traditionally the month of startitis in my house, I've already cast on the first of three jumpers for myself. I picked up a pack of Rico Creative Melange (white/grey slow variegated), Artesano DK merino in a lovely royal blue and Rico Fashion Tasai (variageted autumn colours, it looks like Noro Kureyon but feels softer). 

Oh, and Knittyfred is having a major destash and I picked up what was left of his cache of "Inside Crochet". I won't go into the scandal of the original publishers, as it's been done to death elsewhere. I did meet KA back in the Yarn Forward days, and she seemed nice enough (she bought a knitting machine off me and I gave her a crash course in it, after which we went for pizza with her family). Never heard from her again and no idea what, if anything, happened to the knitting machine. Ah well, one tries to indoctrinate folks into the wonders of mk. Not my fault if it's not carried through. But I digress - whatever you might say about the editor, the patterns themselves are pretty cool. There just hasn't been much crochet around until fairly recently, and certainly no UK publications, which is why I always try to pick up "Inside Crochet" and "Crochet Today" (which is American) whenever I see them in WHSmiths. Alas, I'm somewhat reticent to go as far as subscribing, lest I get my fingers burnt (I should point out that IC is now published by Tailor Made). Haven't tried "Simply Crochet" yet - if it's anything like "Simply Knitting" then I suspect I'll find it too basic for my taste.

Right. There's knitting to be done... 38 cms of it! :)

Current mood: happy