To The Yarn Shop We Went

Ok. Uh... Yeah. Still here. Yarn? Yes.

My friends and I went to London-Wul last Thursday. I'd already been once before with my roommate, and we wanted to take Chris there cause, in Nat's words, 'he would shit a brick'. Here in Moncton we have about three places we can go for yarn: Wal-Mart, Michaels and Cricket Cove. Wal-Mart and Michaels carry mostly commercial, acrylic yarns, and we've (well, at least I've) kinda... graduated from those. Cricket Cove is awesome for fancier yarns, and I love going there, but they are still quite small and they don't carry handspun (and... I'm a sucker for handspun.) London-Wul, however, is not just a yarn shop, it's also Heidi Wulfraat's workshop, where she spins and dyes really gorgeous yarns. They also have pretty hand-turned needles, and they have a bunch of commercial yarn too - some that Cricket Cove doesn't have. It's really worth the trip - about a 15 minute drive from where we are - just to see the place. It's smack in the middle of nowhere, it's gorgeous, it's big but it feels cozy, there are birdies and a gorgeous huuuuuge super shy dog... There are big wood sheep outside with the heads cut out so you can take pictures with your face in a sheep. Chris. Was gonna. Shit. A brick.

The plan was to blindfold him and drive him there without telling him where we were taking him (how, I do not know - it's not like he'd have let us drive his car) and then un-blindfold him once inside the store (and hopefully the owners/staff wouldn't call the cops on us. "There's some... weird people in the store... I think they've kidnapped some guy."). The plan was flawed, first because of that car thing, and second because... well... he'd already heard of the place. We still wanted to be there when he went, though, just to see his face. So Nat, Chris, his girlfriend Danielle (remember her? the one who looked adorable in the slouchy hat?), their friend Valerie (a non-knitter, poor girl) and myself piled in Chris's car and moseyed on over to Lakeburn.

(Well. We had breakfast at Cora's on the way. It was good... except for my honeydew melon, which was crunchy. That was somewhat less than pleasant.)

Anyway. Chris's reaction did not disappoint, and a good time was had by all. Even Valerie, who said she didn't know the first thing about knitting, kept getting excited by the pretty yarn. (That's the first step... Insert evil cackle here.) Here's my portion of the haul:


Dazzle ribbon yarn by Estelle, with which I have cast on a bellydancing fringe belt.



Two skeins of handspun, handdyed polwarth wool. The green and blue one I actually already had from my last visit there, but I hadn't posted about it (see: wanting to surprise Chris.) The pink and white one I was kinda looking at, and then someone behind me said, Oh, nice, strawberries and cream! and the idea latched itself firmly in my brain, and I went 'yoink!' and promptly bought it. Not sure I would have if that idea hadn't taken root, but I'm glad I did.


This... this is something special. It's an 'odd lot', and the tag says... nothing. Seriously. All I know is that it is dyed by the Fleece Artist, but it doesn't match any of their colorways; it's 110g; it's a two-ply, but not quite laceweight (or at least, a bigger gauge laceweight than my Knitpicks Shimmer); and it's gorgeous. Fiber content? Yardage? Suggested gauge and needle size? What on earth I'm gonna do with it? I have no idea! The yarn feels like it could be mostly wool, maybe merino, and it's a little bit hazy like alpaca, but hell, don't quote me on that.

Anyway. All in all, I'd consider our expedition to London-Wul a resounding success, if not entirely healthy for my credit card. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go smell my Fleece Artist - it still smells like the yarn shop...