The Frolic

Last Saturday was the DKC's Annual Knitter's Frolic, held at the Toronto Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre. Always a great day - surrounded by knitters, knitting and overpowering wool fumes...

LuckyCanuck and I started our day early - if you want a chance at parking, you wither have to get there early or come later on as us early birds are staggering out, laden down with purchases. Although getting up early on weekends is against my nature, for this, I do it. (I also had dinner guests coming that night, so I had to be home in good time). We met up around 8am, well before the opening time of 9am, so we took our al fresco breakfast over to a sunny picnic table.

My butcher smokes salmon himself, and does an absolutely amazing job of it. It is the best salmon I have ever had, and I would put money on it that you would feel the same way, unless of course you smoke your own, then that's probably even better. We added some cream cheese, some bagels, a yogurt, granola and fruit parfait, a Tim's coffee (hidden behind the parfait) and by the time we were done, we were well fortified for the morning ahead.

As Lucky has mentioned, we got to watch a parade of vendors go by, some with their wares. It's too bad about the one vendor whose booth smelled of smoke. I mean, I'm an ex-smoker, my husband smokes (outside), but that doesn't mean I want my yarn to smell of smoke. I have no problem with smokers or smoke, but anyone with a sensitivity to the smell would have a problem with her stuff. Anyway, off my soapbox, and on to the goods!

I had decided ahead of time what I was after - the unique, the hard to get locally, or anything that was priced so ridiculously low that I would have been an idiot not to buy it. Specifically, I was after a cardigan's worth of yarn, and even more specifically, Lucky and I had a side bet about Kauni yarn. I said there was no way it would be available, since I figured it was only available by online order. So I wasn't holding my breath for it.

Okay, so I lost the bet. But I got the Kauni yarn! 4 balls of it - (yes it is all the same colourway), more than enough for a sweater - I'm thinking a hooded cardigan, since it will be steeked, but I'm not sure about the sleeves. I'm not a fan of set in sleeves, and I love the raglans, but I'm not sure raglan shaping will work with the patterning. I also want to do something other than the squares within rows from the original pattern, so I may chart something myself.

The yarn itself is pretty scratchy, but I've read that it softens up. Lucky and I both got the rainbow colourway, which you can see a bit of here:

There was only this colour way and the green one, which I liked, but there was only 3 balls of it, and I wanted 4 just in case. I'm betting there wasn't much of it left afterwards.

I also bought some Tilli Tomas Disco Lights. Lucky has a much better outdoor lit shot of this stuff - she bought the turquoise, I went with the black:

The sequins strung on the silk are hard to see in this picture, but they are there. The black on black has a nice understated elegance to it. I'm not sure what this will become, but a friend has designed a pattern she thinks might work - we're going to discuss it at our next Guild meeting. This stuff isn't cheap, but it did meet the requirement of not easy to find, so I'm happy with that. (Although I bought it from a yarn store that is really not far from where I live, so it's not like I couldn't get it easily...) But, it is beautiful, and I love it.

The lace knitter in me surfaced at the Yarns Plus booth. I get their newsletter, and I am always looking at their Tencel yarns. I've used a merino/tencel blend, but never tencel on it's own. I wasn't sure of the feel of it, so when we saw the cones of it there, I had to manhandle it to see. Well. Lovely stuff. I bought one cone of laceweight (3300+ yards!) for $12.50! I'm looking at 2 large and probably a small shawl from this one cone! This hit the requirements of not easy to find, as well as ridiculously well priced! I'm sure it will knit up beautifully, and I adore the silver grey colour. I will have to remember to use bamboo needles on this stuff - it's slicker than the greens at Augusta. (and the golfer in me shows her face...)

And finally, I did take a bit of a stumble at two of the bead booths - I bought some patterns, rayon thread and some beads at Brenda Franklin, and well as some hanks of beads (gunmetal, bronze and gold 3-cuts) at BeadF-X. I don't have pictures of them, but they did re-spark my interest in the bead knitting, and since I already has these ones strung, ready and waiting, I started another choker:

Since finished last night. There were even enough beads strung to make the matching earrings, which took me no time at all. I think it was about 3 dancers worth on Dancing with the Stars last night to do the earrings - pictures soon.

The colours are a little brighter than shows here, and although they are multicoloured, as a whole it reads as a silvery based sparkly colour. I like it.