december in 'brief'; I like to shop

A few weeks ago I decided to put my metro pass to good use and headed to the Corsa Italia to check out Toronto's new yarn shop/knitting cafe;alterknit. The store was bright and spacious and the spankatopita was tasty. They have a good yarn selection and I couldn't leave without buying a little yarn- after all, I had travelled all that way and even braved the Dufferin bus. So I bought 4 skeins of
misti pima cotton/silk blend in eggplant. I had been thinking of making a short sleeved cardigan but probably won't have enough yarn...so perhaps I'll try a camisole. worst case scenario I suppose I will have to head back there for more tasty treats and impulse shopping.


Christmas happened.



Every year we make a Kitchmas tree. mmm Kitch.

I spent Christmas trying to finish a hat for my Grandmother out of horrible horrible acrylic. It's still not finished. I will not be posting pictures as this project goes against every fiber of my being. fiber...get it? I am funny, non.


We went shopping on boxing day. It was pretty miserable, but anything was better than staying home and working on 'the hat'. I was a bit sad about missing the gianormous Romni sale, but figured it would be chaos anyway. On the way home from Square One, we hit a Michael's and I bought this set for $12:






I'm hoping it will change my life.

On wednesday I decided that it may be a good idea to check my email (whoops)and found a message from Nathalie Roze requesting some hats and bags, so I decided to head to Romni to buy some bulky yarn. Finally, the gianormous sale was actually being held on the 27th, so I got to experience the yarn store version of Filene's bargain basement wedding dress sale.




I bought all of this for a little over 100$ It doesn't look like a lot in the photo but there are actually 15 skeins of yarn there. The 'thing' in the bottom right corner is a hat in progress. It defintely needs pom poms.

Most of the yarn is going to be hats and bags, but the
Nashau: creative focus chunky is for a...short sleeved cardigan with a contrasting collar. I hope I have enough yarn. I just realized that I keep buying yarn to make short sleeved cardigans (and am never sure I have enough yarn) and I have yet to start one.

I am regretting not buying a bigger ticket item that I wouldn't normally get, such as Lantern Moon needles or an interchangeable needle set, however it was near impossible to access the needles due to theshopping hoards and I was feeling pretty over stimulated.

After the yarn buying extravaganza, I headed up to Davisville for wednesday night Stitch and Bitch and had some time to kill so I went to the Indigo at Yonge and Eglinton and bought this



It was very impulse-y of me, but I appreciated the cuteness and design of the book and I got %30 off because they considered it to be hardcover. Anyway, it is good for me to build up my knitting book library and the book has useful intructions about garment shaping and installing zippers.

In other news, my Knitpicks order arrived yesterday. I haven't had time to try to Knitting math wizard yet, but will post some manner of review in the future. Perhaps with a pattern for a short sleeved cardigan.