Last weekend I had the ever-effervescent Gina stay with me for a weekend yarn crawl. Beryl and I picked her up from the airport on Friday night after a brief, unplanned tour of Malton (lesson learned: if you're ever driving to Pearson airport from downtown, get in the right lane on the 427 as soon as you get past the 401). Saturday morning we ate breakfast at The Purple Purl, visited Americo and Romni, then wound up at Lettuce Knit. Gina stayed in the shop to check out yarn while Beryl and I scavenged Kensington Market to get food for the evening's barbequeue.
On Sunday we had brunch at Boom on St. Clair and then yarn shopped at In the Loop.
Gina did well on her stash enhancement. I said the only thing I wanted to buy was some Noro sock yarn. Which I did. I also got some other interesting sock yarns — more about them in future posts as I use them up.
Despite constant mention of them, we never did have any waffles. Come to think of it, I'm not sure anyone really wanted any.
Gina was kind and generous enough to give me these amazing things in the photo at the top, all made by artisans in and around Calgary. That's mercerised 3-ply-weight yarn — the idea is that the green yarn is for socks with the blue as heel and toe yarn, but I'm more inclined to make mittens from it. The soap with the star motif is made with ostrich oil, and the mug is stoneware (and has been much used in the last few days for the drinking of tea).
So you can see why I haven't been doing much writing lately. Expect the next few posts to be about sock-knitting.