Luggage crisis

Here I am, back from the USA after my annual work-related trip to Pittsburgh, PA. The visit was enlivened by a Sunday afternoon exploration of the wonderful Knit One yarn store out in Murray Avenue. Naturally this required a little bit of advance planning, but as I'm sure many of you can appreciate, it's something many of us travelling knitters relish. And I can assure you, Knit One did not let me down!

Having scoped out the address and opening hours beforehand, all that was left to me to do was to work out what bus to catch to reach the store. No point asking in the hotel - I usually find they can't understand why you don't just catch a cab there. But I believe that you can learn a lot more about a city and its people by taking a trip on the local buses or trains. There's only one bus every half hour on a Sunday, so there was a bit of waiting around to catch the bus there, but I was lucky to pick one up within a few minutes on the way back.

And what of Knit One itself? A veritable dream of a store! I wandered around in a daze for about half an hour before I could pull myself together enough to decide what to buy. They had shelves, baskets, rails, hooks, trays, etc etc - all adorned/laden/packed/overflowing with the most delicious yarns!

My intention had been merely to educate myself about some of the American yarns - a chance to take a look at them, touch them and see them, and then order them online or some such. And I really did believe I could do that! Ha! I was in denial, especially when faced with a mountain of Malbriggo and a batch of Blue Sky alpaca. It would have been rude not to - honestly! Especially with the pound as it is at the moment.... sigh!

Well the upshot was that I spent about £60, coming home with sufficient Blue Sky Alpaca to knit the Somewhat Cowl, (sadly they didn't have enough of the Alpaca/Silk so I had to do a substitution) as well as a skein of Malbriggo for my sister's christmas present (do I win a prize for the most obscenely early start to christmas planning???) and another skein of something gorgeous which is for general caressing and cooing requirements. Nothing planned for it yet.

I could have bought a whole host more, as well as books, needles, etc etc etc - this shop was VAST - but I tried to exercise some sort of restraint.

I'd love to show you pictures of all these gorgeous yarns - but I am currently in the middle of a luggage crisis. Although I made it back to Heathrow this morning, my bags did not. I don't care about the work notebooks, the suit, the dirty clothes, the sandals and the still-wet swimming costume. I don't even care about the brand-new Levi 501s that the Curse ordered (hope he isn't reading this..).

No, you can keep all the rest. I JUST WANT MY YARN BACK!

PS there will be sock news anon. I have progress to report, although not as much as I had hoped.