A fibery weekend.
We're back from our weekend getaway. Although we didn't have the trip we imagined (Lanesboro is just not our kind of getaway town), there were some high points. For me, of course, they were the knitting-related things.
My souvenirs:
On our way down, we stopped at Kristen's Knits in Rochester, where I finally bought Norsk Strikkedesign. I've been drooling over this book for ages, and could no longer resist. It was a weekend of decadence, after all! (Time for all of you to be jealous: Matthew says he'll buy me Poetry In Stitches if I knit one of the sweaters from this book. Want to help me choose where to begin?) The shop is a great little one, focusing on standard, rather than novelty, yarn. The prices are fantastic and so are the employees. They've got the most delicious handpainted mohair that I had to pass up due to the $60 price tag, but boy, was I tempted. It changed my perception of what mohair can be. (That is, soft!)
Yesterday we escaped Lanesboro and set off for Harmony. Our goal: Austin's Mohair. We got there just in the nick of time: winter hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 til 3, and we arrived just before the sign was turned to "closed." Ada Austin, the Goat Lady, immediately praised Matthew's scarf, then mine. We talked about knitting and her goats and she made sure we went out to see her new lambs in the barn. (Oh, their wobbly little legs!) The shop was just the kind I like, filled with all sorts of niche products. There were a ton of handknit items (made by local women, which Ada purchases outright and only marks up 20%, so I read), a roomful of handspun and handpainted yarn, dolls and bears made of mohair and other goat products, and goat meat and cheese.
I ended up with two skeins of handspun mohair boucle (seen on the left in the picture above). It's very soft, fluffy, and light. It says 2 oz/64 yards, but I'm sure there's a lot more. Likewise with the other yarn, which is a wool/mohair blend, handpainted in deep teal blue, dark and light leafy green, and pale yellow. The tag says 4 oz/80-90 yards, but it looks more like 200 yards to me (if not more) and is fingering or DK weight (I'm too lazy to measure the wpi, so I'm eyeballing it). It looks a little tangled, but for $11, I won't complain. The boucle was also reasonably priced at $8.50 per skein. There was so much great stuff, though, I found it hard to keep it to these two kinds.
Hardly any knitting was done on the trip, though. I was just to darn tired. I'm about halfway done with one cardigan sleeve, though.
I wore my Moorish Patterned Pullover yesterday and am wearing my ribbed sleeve pullover today. It feels so good to be lounging in sweaters I made my very own self!
Tipper @ 4:17 PM * link
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