Swimming in Yarn

I think it's every knitter's dream to be swimming in yarn. Well I came pretty close yesterday. Think ball pit, but yarn instead. Yarn shopping local to me can be a bit limited with mainly markets selling acrylics and a few Sirdar dominant shops. To get anything a bit more adventurous it's a trip to Liverpool or Manchester. Still when my LYS has a sale it's worth a wander in. They don't tend to discount the usual stock as it's slightly cheaper anyway, but they do bring in packs of yarn heavily discounted. Most of it (Sirdar/Patons) I can get cheaper at a warehouse in Liverpool but there are always a few gems hiding away. The packs of yarn are just piled up in a heap on the floor for you to explore at your own peril. At one point I was one foot outside the pile and one foot in the middle and firmly stuck knee deep at full leg stretch and the owner and my mother were far to busy laughing to help me. My troubles were worth it.
Hiding away at the very bottom were two 500g packs of Jaeger Mohair Art in Cigar and Goldfield for £15 each. They're beautiful and so soft. I know my stash is mohair-tastic but this was a very welcome addition. It's not the slightest bit itchy and feels divine. Very pettable. I'm thinking of making some very simple classic cardigans out of it.

Feeling pretty pleased with myself I wandered into one of the charity shops in town for a nosy at the books and struck gold. I was pretty pleased to find 'Traditional Island Knitting' by Pam Dawson (including patterns from The Channel Islands, Shetland, Aran, Fair Isle, The Falklands and Iceland), but that was only the tip of the iceberg. Tucked away were a set of dodgy looking 70s craft books - Magic Touch, Fashion and Homecrafts by Mary Harding. It came out in 1975 and the 5 volumes contain mostly knitting, crochet and sewing with a few bits on weaving, beading and embroidery plus a few other innocuous crafts. A surprising number of the patterns are very wearable and with only 2 sewing patterns missing (ones I certainly won't miss) I'm in for some serious crafting time. Granted I won't be knitting myself angora thermal underwear (no really, don't get any ideas), but there are some gorgeous coats which are a good incentive to improve my sewing skills and there are a plethora of knitting and crochet patterns begging to be made. All 6 items were 50p each. Bargainous!

As for my knitting I'm on the sleeves of James's navy blue cardigan and my green cable cardi. My eyes struggle with dark colours at night so I'm working on both projects at different times of the day.