Home Again, Home Again

The last ten days or so I have been on a visit to the Land Of Opportunity. We grabbed the chance to have a break in Philadelphia and NYC for a break. I apologise to any of my fellow bloggers whose emails I have yet to reply to. My phone tended, rather expensively, to jump off the hotel wifi, and Mr Security in Hotmail and Gmail tried asking me all sorts of awkward security questions when I tried to email using my husband's  ipad. I know, I set up the security questions, but, like, who remembers their answers? Now I am home, it is time to link up with Molli Sparkles again, handily enough.

Anyhow, we had a great time, the stateside son  is hale and hearty, I have to see him in situ to be sure of this! We did a bit of this.



And this,


And some of this,

And a little bit of this.
And of course this.

I hear stories of suitcases coming home full of Levi jeans, but in my case, I like to buy wool.
In Philadelphia I made my annual visit to Loop Knits and treated myself. They always have great samples knit in the shop. This suits me, as I see wool, love it, but am never quite sure what to do with it or how much to buy. I spotted this stone point poncho in Luma Knits yarn and tried it on. It fitted my criteria, "do I look the size of a house in this?" The answer was no, the hard bit was deciding which colour. There was a beautiful hot pink but in the end I decided on grey. I seem to graduating to grey these days.

A ball of bright multi coloured sock wool snuck into the basket as well, it is called "happy accident" and it will be a happy accident if I actually knit two socks the same that actually fit! My daughter really liked this wool, so here's hoping.

I also bought some more carbon sock needles and a short circular needle for knitting hats. I have plenty of circular needles, but never have the right size or right length. That seemed to be me and my pencil case the whole way through the school - plenty of pencils but never the right colour pencil - do I need therapy? Or did everybody in school feel like this? Anyhow, my yearly visits to Loop Knits meant I had $5 in loyalty points to use, brilliant.

In NYC we had, of course to go to Purl Soho. How can we not?  I had a little scrap of my camel fabric with me to pair up, but in the end I bought yardage of  Robert Kaufman Kona on sale. Two shades of pink, and a deep blue,  Soooo cheap compared to the price at home. They had one other yardage in their sale basket, a lilac, could have, should have, would have bought that too. One of life's regrets, for years to come I will say, I should have bought that lilac. I was there the next day to buy wool and forgot to check it was still there.


They had some lovely Carolyn Friedlander fabric too. But ... it is very high up and difficult to check out when vertically challenged with a tendency to vertigo when looking straight up. I didn't ask for help, as I reckoned I have most of it anyway. See how sensible and frugal I can be?

The last thing I bought was some lovely wool for the daughter in law. I was torn between buying her two skeins of lovely wool, or one skein of really lovely wool. I decided to go for the really lovely wool, hand dyed Anzula yarn. It is a superwash merino, with cashmere and just a touch of nylon, 4ply wool. It is called Squishy and that marketing team deserves some buns.

My second regret, and yes, I have a few, is that I didn't buy some yarn for myself. The problem of having peaked too early in Loop Knits or just that I treated myself to some Tiffany Return To New York earrings and there is so much treating you can do. Before Tiffany come to hunt me down, I must say I find their staff spectacularly unhelpful. Maybe it is just me. Three visits, three purchases, three experiences. Ah well, I will hardly be buying anything else, I have the necklace, bracelet and earrings, times two.

Helen x
linking up with Molli Sparkles and Sunday Stash


Comments

  1. Welcome home! It sounds like a lovely trip. I definitely approve of that royal blue Kona you picked up. :) And interesting about customer service at Tiffany's.

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  2. Lucky you, this sounds like a great way to spend a few days. You showed admirable self-restraint too. I have been known to travel taking only things I was happy to throw out, so that I could fill the space with my purchases. Once left a whole tent in France so I could fit wine in my boot.

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  3. Oooh, green with envy and congratulations to you on how restrained you were😀 .. maybe it's our age re the grey as i seem to be craving grey too at the moment. The poncho will be amazing .... So glad you had a lovely family time .....Love and hugs xx

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  4. I know what you mean about grey, and it comes in such a myriad of shades too. Lovely solids, how could you resist the lilac? Oh well, there is always the next time!

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  5. Wow, sounds like an amazing trip...and yarn too!!
    Love that poncho!

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  6. Family time and shopping all in one, sounds like you had a great visit.

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  7. Sounds like a great trip. Im green with envy....all that yarn shopping. Im looking forward to see a photo of you wearing the poncho.

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  8. I have been following your trip on Instagram, the food and fun! I'm not a knitter, but the greenish yard in the second picture looks like it would be super soft to the touch. Glad you had fun on your trip and made it back home safely.

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