New Yarns

A day in Edinburgh, a visit to two yarn shops and a skein or two of lovely yarn brought home to use in upcoming projects.

The red yarn is from Yarn Pony an extravagant purchase of 100g of baby alpaca, silk and cashmere - but it felt so soft and the colour, Fire Engine, and was just too Christmassy to leave in the shop. I'll need to look for a suitably luxurious pattern to match.

Yarn Pony, apart from producing lovely hand-dyed yarn - and there were lots more equally appealing colours and yarn mixtures that I left behind on the shelf - runs yarn dyeing workshops. I am definitely going to put one of those on my 2014 to do list.

The shop that stocks the lovely yarn is Kathy's Knits in Broughton Street, full of lots of British rare breed yarns and run by a very friendly lady. I also bought some New Lanark Mills chunky yarn to use for an owl hat pattern I want to try soon.

I also tracked down Be Inspired Fibres in Marchmont Road - the hand spun baby camel is another softie and Mei who runs the shop had knitted up a moss stitch scarf in the yarn and it looked lovely and I was picturing me and a crochet hook and some happy hours making a Christmas gift for someone - so I had to get some.

The orange is a Cascade Alpaca Lana D'Oro. It felt happy to be picked up with the lovely camel and I have no fixed idea of what I'll do with it yet!! There were so many different yarns and such a fabulous range of colours in the shop that I could have filled a trunk. If you are ever in Edinburgh treat yourself to a visit. I would have loved to have taken some photos, but there were a few people in the shop and I felt a bit nervous to ask - maybe next time.

A well deserved cup of coffee and a cinnamon bun was had at Peter's Yard - an artisan Swedish bakery - aren't cities great places to visit?