Stash Enhancement

I'm currently staying at my mum's house for a few days, and she mentioned that she had a pretty good local yarn shop *grins* I'm sure you can see where this is going ;)

I wanted to get the yarn to make a couple of patterns from the Vampire Knits book, and my LYS is hopeless (DK and Chunky in 100% acrylic making up the bulk of their stock *rolls eyes*) so I thought it wouldn't hurt to pop in.

From the front it doesn't look like much, in fact it looks very old fashioned, so I was expecting a fairly limited range.

How wrong I was! It's a proper little treasure trove, with every brand and fibre you could ask for. And remarkably reasonably priced too *eyes light up*

So of course I had to make the most of this opportunity ;) I was in there for ages, fondling all the soft and fluffy goodness. I could have bought enough to make an entire wardrobe of clothes (and you should see the size of my wardrobe!) Instead, I restrained myself to only going a little bit mad. Afterall, it'll be there next time I come to mum's, so I can always stock up again!

So, onto the goodies:

This giant ball to make the hooded cardigan... It's somewhat acrylic, but for a cardigan that works I think. Can't seem to get a good picture of the colour - it's somewhere between the two, although far more purple than the first picture implies (close up to show the fact that it has flecks of green, which didn't come out in the other picture)

Regia sock yarn - I'm still determined to knit socks at some point, and I love how garish the colours are in this. Not something I'd wear for anything else, but I like fun socks ;)

4ply in a sort of burgundy, to make the capelet from Vampire Knits

6 balls of Kidsilk Aura, in a sort of caramel colour. I'm still working on my jumper in the purple colourway of this yarn, and it's lovely to knit with, but I had no plans to buy any more for a little while, as I'm still experimenting to see what I like. But then I saw the price (I paid £5 a ball for the purple, which was reduced from something like £7.95)... £2.75 a ball *big smile* So I couldn't not really!

And this - 2 skeins of Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend. I've heard (read?!) so many bloggers rave about this stuff, but I'd never had the chance to see it in person, and it was a little too pricy to buy online without knowing I'd like it. Well, like it I do ;)

And a close up to show the variety of gorgeous colours:

Well, that was a fairly unexpected stash enhancement expedition, and I'm already excited about going back next time I'm in the area *laughs and ignores the lack of space in my house for all this yarn*