My week

Finally Blogger has let me upload some pics! Above - I took a trip to HK Edinburgh at the weekend and came out with some purple Noro Silk Garden, some more Clover stitch holders and some Addi Turbos. I think I very restrained (because I was rushing as the boy was parked on double yellows in the next street)

HK Edinburgh was a really nice shop. What did it have that you can't get in K1 Yarns or Glasgow John Lewis?

Well...there was lots of Lana Grossa yarns, which I was really excited about. They were mostly man-made yarns, or man-made blends which didn't interest me much, but it was nice to see something new and different. There was also some lovely Louisa Harding yarns and lots of (Lana Grossa mostly) sock yarns through in the next room. Tonnes of books and magazines that were interesting.

They had some coloured aluminium needles in straights, dpns and circs which were so cool and they had made up the Rowan Tapestry scarf from this months Simply Knitting, which looked great.

The only disappointment I felt was that the prices of the yarns were all on A4 printouts at the end of the shelves. It would have been preferable to have them on the shelves under the balls, rather than having a to-and-fro to find out the costs - a small gripe, but when the shop gets busier people are having to squeeze past each other to check prices ...



My baking this week - Family Apple Pie from "The Beginnner's Cookbook" (I couldn't find it on Amazon to add a link) made entirely from scratch - pastry and all! It is delicious - the apples are from the boy's grand-parent's apple trees so I feel all Martha Stewart this week.

Especially as I had a huge Kool-Aid dyeing day on the holiday Monday (photos and tutorial to follow). A picture of a slice of the pie is at the bottom (as Blogger will not let me decide the order of my pics!)

Kathleen has mentioned that along with Cupcakes Galore there is also Cookies Galore - I think this may be my next purchase! Her Citrus Cream Stars look delish!


And finally, swap shop last night at the Glasgow SnB meet. I got some blue wool from Lilith and some fantastic 80s Vogue Knitting mags in exchange for some of my duplicate circs - they are so cool and include features like:

An intarsia Joker playing-card jumper
Matching outfits for child and Cabbage Patch dolls
A pattern for knitting a pair of socks at the same time - one inside the other!
An Elizabeth Zimmerman article
Some simply fabulous advertising, including a woman wearing a jumper in a pool all seductive and wet illustrating the brilliance of superwash wool. Who was the advert directed at exactly?

Another advert with the tagline "You haven't seen yardage like this since OJ Simpson : Nuturespun yarns"

And of course truely wonderful patterns - a lot are unwearable, however with a little adjustment could make fabby retro bags or purses.

It's quite interesting reading a magazine with no reference to the internet - the adverts request that people send in self-addressed envelopes with cheques to see the samples of their yarn - there was no other way for people to discover new yarns outside of their LYS than this. Now of course, we have the internet which is flooded with yarns, plus other people's opinion of how they knit up via blogs, forums etc.

I never realised how much I took the internet for granted - even if the site isn't an online shop, it is at least an information point for stockists of the makers yarns and a showcase for their prodcuts.

I love these mags! Lookout for the Joker playing card jumper coming your way!!

yum!