This is my vacation shopping yarn stash! I went down to Edmonton with a bunch of patterns and some vague ideas for colours and walked into River City Yarns , which had been particularly recommended to me by somefriends. The ladies at the shop were very nice and helped me find appropriate yarns for all my projects. I had three of the skeins I bought wound into balls at the shop so I can use them right away. I’m a little proud of myself for buying only one skein that is not designated for a specific project but actually true stash yarn for some future idea. There were so many wonderful yarns that it was difficult to pick only a few. My only disappointment was not to find any spindles but, as Rob said yesterday on our flight back, there is no way I’d have managed to fit a spindle into out bags anyway.

Here are my yarns:

First, Rob helped me pick out two nearly solid shades of Socks that Rock - Lightweight for the Endpaper Mitts pattern by Eunny Jang. The top colour is “Beryl” and the bottom is “Jasper”.

Sticking with Socks that Rock I chose a mediumweight in “Rolling Stone” for the Purl Beret .

And then a heavyweight in “Rose Quartz” for the Cabled Fingerless pattern. The blue skein in behind the pink is “Midsummer Night” and was just to pretty to pass up - my official stash yarn.

I got one ball of Rowan Calmer in “Powder Puff” (Shade 482) to make up Twinkletoes from the last issue of Knitty.


Three balls of Noro Kureyon are for the Booga Bag Pattern which I printed off ages ago but didn’t have yarn for.

Finally, there are three skeins of Manos del Uruguay in “Mallard” to become a scarf for Rob.

I had to get needles for several of my new projects too so I now have a slightly fuller needle collection.

 

It’s always a tough decision choosing a flight to leave on. Evening flights mean hectic packing; morning flights mean early rising. We decided it would be nice to have most of the day after we finished traveling so we went for the morning flight. Another bonus was visible as we took off - sunrise is never so spectacular on the ground as it is from 30, 000 feet.

We took a pleasant week exploring Edmonton. We were staying on Whyte Ave which meant we didn’t have to go far to find a nice coffee or somewhere to shop. We were within walking distance of the University too so catching the train to downtown wasn’t a big deal.

We ate all kinds of food from dill pickle soup to raw salmon and fried noodles to donair. All of it was delicious. I decided I need to learn to make brioche after we visited The Pomegranate Cafe. They make two kinds of hot chocolate, Belgian and French. We tried the Belgian as it had been recommended to us but I think we will have to go by again sometime and try the French to find out what the difference is. The cafe is tiny. There is hardly enough room for the three little tables and their chairs. The hot chocolate is fantastic and so rich you can hardly finish the tea cup.

 

I have a new photo gallery up. It is an idea I’ve been playing with in my head for a while - inspired by the photos I took to show the new ribbons and thread I got last week - but it took some creative thinking before I was able to create a set-up that would let me takethe right kind of pictures.

Several times recently I have seen pictures of ordinary objects shown at many times their usual size and I find them just fascinating. There are so many tiny details in our everyday lives that we don’t really notice. I think it’s nice every once in a while to sit down and really look at things to appreciate what’s there. I hope you enjoy the gallery; it was a fun experiment.