Tag: LYS

Newcastle: Thanks to PurlPower!

On my quest to read more blogs of chronically ill women who craft, I found the delightful PurlPower blog by a woman who lives in the North of England (but luckily going to spend several months in Spain this year). She’s recently had to stop working, at least for now, due to fibromyalgia. I know how much that sucks :/ (For the record it’s been six years since I was able to work even part time…)

Since I’m going to be in Newcastle over the holidays, and was wanting to go to yarn shops while there, I asked if she could recommend a few. She kindly posted a huge list! I’m not sure how much time we will have to go out, but I am really looking forward to checking some of these places out 🙂 Thanks again!!

On an amusing note, my husband is originally from Newcastle, Australia and his mother thinks it’s great that we will be in Newcastle for Christmas while the rest of his family is in the other Newcastle.

There’s no place like home

 …especially if your husband has been sick and hasn’t cleaned anything in the five weeks you were gone.  *Sigh*  I know better than to expect the place to be nice when I get home but some part of me still is disappointed when I walk into a dump 🙁

I survived the trip to DC, which included a visit to the Springwater Fiber Workshop (which was cleaned out due to their almost-went-out-of-business sale so nothing really to see) and the very lovely Knit Happens shop in Alexandria where I bought three skeins of Pima cotton from Peru. Not organic, alas, and I *know* that it is very important to buy organic cotton as 50% of the world’s pesticide use is in the cotton industry, but it was beautifully handpainted from a small company so I couldn’t resist.

So I’m home, but my yarn stash is in transit as I didn’t have enough luggage space. All I could cram in was two skeins for the scarf for my husband and the yarn that has now become the finished scarf for my mom. I need to try to take pictures but I need to be awake in daylight for that to happen. Right now I am sleeping 15 hrs a day 🙁

I do get to gloat a little as both husband and friend made noises about wanting the very first hat that I made of out Red Heart Light & Lofty. I think I have enough yarn left to make a second hat so both shall be appeased. It’s nice to make things that other people like, I was worried about stuff being really boring or screaming newbie but I find with the looms it’s a lot harder to screw up than with needles! Dropped stitches are more noticeable and easier to fix.

So much to write about, I got five looming books from Amazon for a total of six (out of I think 8 that exist), so I shall be writing up about them soon. Unfortunately my hands hurt too much for me to type any more today, but I really plan to blog more frequently now that I am home. If having my computer in the shop doesn’t turn into too much of a nightmare, that is! But hopefully that will all get fixed while I am away for the holidays and thus will be as painless as it can be. In the meantime though, the hands say it it time to stop and I must obey…