under dutch skies

I realized that I never showed you the yarn I bought in California in September.  How remiss of me!  Let me fix that situation.

Above is Noro Silk Garden Sock.  These are very bright and cheery.  To go with them I bought…

These two are dark but still beautiful.  The 4 of them together will be perfect for a vest.  It will be of my own design (all set up in my head anyway).  I probably won’t get around to starting it until next year, which is luckily right around the corner.

I also bought….

11 of these Noro Silk Garden plus 11 of these…

These 22 skeins will make a lap blanket for the cold Dutch winter nights.  I haven’t decided how exactly I’m going to make this blanket.  I might just pick a simple stitch pattern that I like.  I might just knit a gigantic square of garter stitch, knit on the diagonal, or I might make a 10 stitch wide strip in kind of a log cabin pattern.  We’ll see.  My first criteria is that it must be something that I don’t have to sew together, so no blocks or small pieces allowed.

And that’s it for yarn!  Those 22 skeins of Silk Garden broke the yarn budget for the trip, but it was the one thing I really wanted to buy.  I bought all of this at a lovely shop in Chico California called Heart Strings Yarn Studio.  Their web site is, well, less than perfect, but the shop in person was very nice.  It is packed with yarn for everyone, loads and loads of books, and a knitting/teaching area in the back.  I also bought Jared Flood’s book “Made in Brooklyn” there.

Now I need to get knitting!