Happiness is a big box of yarn

My ebay purchase arrived today! Nasty Canada Customs decided to ding me for a little extra duty at the post office (haven't you folks gotten enough out of me this year?!), but I got to bring home my big box of very cheap vintage wool.


This is my favourite of the lot. "Bear Brand Town and Country" 2 ply. I have 8 1.5 oz balls. It's quite nice and soft. I've actually started wearing a lot of red lately, so I have to admit, thoughts of joining the red sweater knit-along have crossed my mind!Other highlights include these assorted skeins, a pile of tapestry wool (which just screams fair isle to me), and a cone of "Bartlett" yellow-pink-tweedy wool, supposedly from Maine, that looks to be about sport weight, plus a lot more that I haven't photographed. Some of it is nice soft wool, others are old-fashioned scratchy stuff. I hate the colour of the peach skein of Botany brand, but I look at that as an opportunity to try dying. There are hours of fun in this box - and that's just in swatching and planning, maybe designing a little.











































In knitting news, here's the progress on the first fair isle sock:

I think I might set this aside when I get the first one finished and concentrate on Christmas knitting. The holidays are creeping closer and I still have a long list of gifts to get to. I picked up some Super Soxx the other day, which I think is destined to become Jaywalker Socks for my mother in law. I recently found out that she loved last year's gift socks so much that she has pretty much worn them out. They were just plain ribbed socks in fairly cheap sock wool, back when I was just starting to knit finer gague socks. I'm hoping the Super Soxx will hold up better for mulitple washings - any comments?


And finally, I'm off to meet the Yarn Harlot tonight! I'm heading out to Kanata where Stephanie is speaking and signing books at Yarn Forward. I'm even dragging a non-knitting friend along - well, she offered to come since she lives nearby. Could it be that she's really a knitter just waiting to learn???