Sunday, September 2, 2007

Back Again

Harry and I have returned from England--Harry as grumpy as always. I don't know why he should be grumpy. After all, he lunched with the Queen several times (the Queen, of course, had no idea there was a giant spider under the table) and spent the rest of the time waving my credit card around any yarn shop he could find.

I have to credit the salespeople in these English shops with an extraordinary amount of aplomb. They apparently saw nothing unusual about a furry six-inch spider buying skeins of yarn and cheerfully rang up his purchases. Frankly, this scares me, but he did make lovely choices that fit into our suitcases with some difficulty.

On the top we have a glorious skein of Fyberspate's mohair and on the bottom, three skeins of Fyberspate's silk lace.


To our surprise, Harry also bought Roy some yarn for dress socks, complete with frog buttons for decoration.


Harry tells me that the silk lace yarn was purchased at I Knit, a petite London shop whose most outstanding feature was the pile of vintage knitting magazines. By vintage, I mean there was actually a mag from 1912 on the shelf. I am not sure when "vintage" shades into "antique," but you get the picture. Fortunately, he refrained from bringing home magazines with patterns for woolly undervests, but he did find a few sweet toy booklets with patterns perfect for using up odds and ends.


The Noah's Ark pamplet is an insert to the current Simply Knitting magazine, worth getting if you like tiny, adorable knitted animals. Jean Greenhowe has published many booklets, which you can graze through here.

The mohair and sock yarn came from Get Knitted in Brislington (outside of Bristol), a store so full of yarn that it's worth a detour on the way to, say, Chicago. They carry an immense range of goodies, including the entire Fleece Artist, Handmaiden, and Lorna lines. Harry couldn't shlep the camera with him (he hitchhiked and needed all his arms to hang on to the transporting vehicles), so sorry, you'll just have to consult their web page and cry in frustration.

Aside from a small amount of clothing and a large amount of yarn, our return luggage bulged with an entire wheel of the Best Cheddar In The Universe, three bottle stoppers, a jar of onion chutney, and a bag of genuine Sherbet Lemons, Dumbledore's (and mine) favorite sweet.

I knit a row of Lyra and four rows of Luna, and turned a corner on the Spider King this morning. It's good to be home.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow!!!!! British Yarn. How snotty! :), Just Kidding.

Let me ask you a question, when you buy yarn, do you know already what you're going to make or you just buy a whole bunch of it?

fleegle said...

Dear Kenny--
The answer to your question is:

Yes.

Laritza said...

Harry managed to do some nice shopping. Welcome home!

z's momma said...

Welcome back. That is sure lovely yarn. And I love the Alan Dart booklet, especially the camel.

Anonymous said...

chicago by way of brislington... can yahoo even map that?

fleegle said...

Dear 2Trees:
The answer to your question is:

No.

Google Maps wouldn't give me directions because you can't drive from Chicago to Brislington. But you can take a plane to London and a train to Brislington. I am too jet-lagged to figure out the exact route, but it shouldn't be too difficult :)

Lori said...

Welcome back!
The yarn is certainly gorgeous - perhaps Harry will take on a job as my personal yarn shopper?

LittleBerry said...

I can't even get to Brislington from Lanacashire & I'm in the same country, a clear case of near yet so far but I will make it one day.... The goodies you and Harry purchased look interesting and will be interested to see what you make with them....

Alan Dart and Jean Greenhowe are both gifted Toy designers and very popular.....

Swallowtail is blocked so 'decent' photos to follow ;o)

Anonymous said...

Hi, what beautiful yarn you have there, it seems Harry knows how to do some good shopping. BTW the Noah Ark booklet came with Simply Knitting Mag not with Knitting just in case someone orders the wrong mag.

fleegle said...

Thanks, Romy. I changed the name and the link. Got my mags mixed up.

Lacefreak said...

Welcome back! British Swag. You really are a world traveler! Harry has wonderful taste. The yarn and magazines are drool worthy. If you start knitting tiny little animals Harry can put them on his bed for display. Good to have you back!

BadCatDesigns said...

Welcome back. Nice stashing...

Carol said...

Maybe the British clerks are more wordly than ours?

Karla (ThreadBndr) said...

It's easy, really. Yarn shops are magical places. Therefore, they live on the interface between muggle and Wizarding Britan. The clerks must have been squibs, and they know that Acromantulas (even Japanese ones) are intelligent.

Sorry - having a Harry Potter moment here.

Colette said...

Harry certainly has wonderful taste. He picked some really gorgeous stuff.

Courtney said...

It is good to see your back :-) so did you enjoy your time in England? How long were you there? I would love to go some day. So how long is the flight back home?

Opal said...

It's good to have you back! You came home with some lovely yarn!

Batty said...

You are so much trouble! Worth getting if you like adorable little knit animals... who doesn't???

Soo said...

I keep meaning to go to Get Knitted...but can't seem to convince my friends that a day trip to visit a yarn shop is worthwhile.

I need new friends.

FUZZARELLY said...

The yarn that Harry found is quite nice! Like that mohair!

My cashmere and cash/silk lace from Yubina arrived Friday last and I am happy with it. (For about $5 shipping, it took just over two weeks to get here. Not bad.) I hope you came home to a brown paper package covered with beautiful Chinese stamps.