The Knit Tin Part II or What I Bought!

I promised to show and tell what I bought at The Knit Tin the weekend before last so here goes.


What was in The Knit Tin carrier bag? Well, I bought Debbie Abrahams' new book, "More Blankets and Throws" and Debbie Bliss's Alpaca Silk book.


I took advantage of the offer of having my "More Blankets and Throws" book autographed by Debbie at the workshop . . . . .


. . . . . and I also thought I'd put the other Debbie's book to good use by buying this gorgeous Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk


to make Lara (below).


The only other yarn I bought were two skeins of Noro Iro in colourway 18 because I thought it was the closest I could find to the colours of the Skacel yarn used for the Fickle Fingers Scarf in the current Interweave Knits.


If you haven't seen a picture of the Fickle Fingers Scarf, it looks like this.


Below are the four sets of clay buttons I mentioned in my last post which are kiln-fired and glazed by Debbie Abrahams' mother.


Lastly, I bought two lots of stitch markers which come with stitch holders in organza bags and a special vintage style sterling silver needle with a curved end for mattress stitching.


I had been using the little hair braiding bands from Claire's Accessories which make excellent stitch markers until they've been used for a while at which point they become stretched and get twisted into the stitches on the needle. The other problem with them is that they are constantly pinging across the room as you knit so I was relieved to get some proper stitch markers. I do love the fancy jewellery ones too but I find, personally, they get in the way of the knitting and distract me.

I'm still trying to get through my list of things to do before I can feel completely organised for Xmas. I always seem to leave things to the last minute at Xmas-time and swear to be more organised the following year but it never seems to happen.

On Saturday, we went to Bluewater because there were certain things I had to buy in the way of Xmas pressies which could, apparently, only be obtained from here. It was a hive of consumerism and I found it quite stressful to be among all those rushing milling crowds. I did find the little bit of knitterly buying I did in John Lewis to be quite soothing though. When our stomachs told us it was lunchtime, we decided to avoid the John Lewis' restaurant (which is where we usually eat when we're at Bluewater) and had a look around for something else. We found this little Mexican place in the Wintergarden called Cantina Mariachi. It was really mellow with Mexican music playing in the background and avante garde looking waiting staff. The world suddenly seemed a much nicer place after tacos and a couple of glasses of sangria!