Knitting Fair and new yarn!

The knitter's fair was fabulous. It has grown to almost twice the size with 70 verndors in 2 ballrooms. I spent a quick 2 hours browsing and chatting and touching and soaking in the colours and textures and patterns and ideas. I was proud of the conservative 2 purchases and delighted to present to you, the Fleece Artist Mo jacket kit, with a delightful rust blend mohair yarn....

and the huge 8 oz skein of Silken Twist (wool, and silk) in natural, that will become a hand dyed in my kitchen in the near future. Yarns Plus had some lovely hand dyed skeins of this yarn, but I have not dyed anything for a while and the urge was too great to make a one of a kind skein of wool and silk.

Here's a few candid shots of the fair, but not enough to show how immense it was and to reflect the buzz of excitement amoung the knitters.

Needle Emporium Tent Sale (or Yarn Heaven)

Today my Knitting Group took a road trip to a yarn sale! It was the annual tent sale at the Needle Emporium in Ancaster, Ontario. I have never been before as it is usually on a work day for me but I have heard tales of deals beyond belief. And not just bad dye lots and odd balls, but real silk and merino and lots of it! So off we went, arriving at the opening time of 5pm for the first evening of the sale. It had grown so big over the years that it outgrew the "tent" and moved into a local church hall nearby. So we hit the front door with the thoughts: take no prisoners, every knitter for themself, set your radar for Merino and Silk, and leave the acrylic alone! The deal is this... they have 3 sizes of bags and you can fill them with whatever you want for $40 or$75 or $150. The only exception is Colinette yarn for $10 a skein! Within minutes I have 2 lots of NORO and 2 lots of Colinette, all enough for a full sweater each (4 sweaters). Moments later ALL the Noro was gone and most of the Colinette picked over. I got Silver Thaw and Blossom (Noro) and Tagliatelli and Chrysalis (Coli'). i also fit 5 balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Dk, and 3 more balls of Blossom and some sequin accent yarn (usually $25 a ball) and some mohair scarf yarn. All in all about $700 retail price worth of yarn for $175. Wowweeee. Each of us bagged lots of bargains and although the suv was not FULL, you can see we did well. We stopped for a nice patio supper at a nearby pub, and met up with 2 other tables of knitters still on their tent sale highs, all chatting of the bargains and the possible patterns they will be using.