Can't help myself

Whenever I travel away from home I have to check to see if I can find any fabric or wool stores. Well I have to say the Melbourne cbd isn't great. I knew Lincraft was in the city but this didn't excite me at all but I headed that way to see if I could find anything else. I ran into a lady while I was crossing the street in the rain and she looked like she might be a knitter so I asked her if there were any specialty wool shops around and she said well not really a 'specialty' shop but they do sell wool and I'm on my way there now...........amazing, so she said "follow me". How could I not. We ended up at Clegs in Elizabeth Street and they are mostly an evening fabric store but they really do have some wool. I bought the large hank of J&J's hand painted pure wool from New Zealand there, should make a great felted bag. Also found some bag handles which will come in handy for a new design. The best thing I found were the Clover bamboo knitting needles, I bought 2 sets of double points and one pair of straights. They are so light and smooth to work with, I can recommend them to you all. I also bought the Dawn silk/wool yarn and began knitting a lacy scarf back at the backpackers as the weather was perfect for knitting...........wet and cold! After leaving this shop I meandered my way around and followed the steps down to Dymocks bookstore and found Nicki Eptein's lovely book all about felting, something which I am more than a little passionate about.............it is a great adventure, really inspiring. The other find was the Interweave Favourite Socks book, this one I had always coveted and now it's mine!

Now since I had tried the Clover straights I had to test the double point needles don't I? As this Saturday is a special day for Dear Husband and I the time had come to knit him a pair of socks, he has hinted so often I thought I could do this small thing for him and test the needles at the same time. So I set to work on some Sirdar Town and Country colour 100 Harlequin (discontinued I believe) from my stash and finished the first sock in one day and have a few days to get the second one done now I know you can knit a nice long pair of size 12 socks from one 50g ball with a little yarn to spare! I thought this spare piece would allow me to match the stripes in the socks but it just won't work this time, the repeat of stripes is too large. Anyway I'm sure he won't care it's just the 'neat freak' in me coming out. Must go, many stitches to knit. Oh, also bought a Clover row counter that hangs around your neck, this makes a huge difference when knitting socks, so much less row counting by eye, another great find.