A little trip to Stitch

Over the holiday I wrangled a trip to Stitch, my favourite yarn shop - coincidentally located in Jordan Village, one of my favourite places in the Niagara Region.

(Fair warning: Stitch is located in a cute little house a few doors up and across the street from The Fibre Garden, for which I could not wrangle any extra time this visit.  Fortunately they have a good online shop, but if you knit or spin or quilt or some combination thereof I can't think of a better place for a relaxing weekend away than Jordan, with its breathtaking views over the Escarpment and its adorable bed and breakfasts and yummy restaurants and so on.)

The main reason I like to go to Stitch is because I get to see Jocelyn, who has such a gift for making a welcoming, inspiring space.  Even though I only ever get 30 minutes tops in there, I come away feeling like I've had a holiday.  But also, Jocelyn stocks some pretty fantastic stuff - and she has a good-sized room set aside for fabrics to boot.

Here is a recap of what I picked up in less than half an hour.

Mary Goes Shopping

Jocelyn is the one who tipped me off about the fingerless gloves I made so many pairs of for Christmas, and the yarn she suggested for my original pair proved to be so useful for various presents during the Christmas KnitFrenzy I thought I should have more, but in this colourway that kinda leapt out at me.

That done, I had to pick up some French General fabrics.  I've been obsessing about them since the last visit, and decided not to waste time agonizing about which designs to choose.  I just went with my gut and picked these ones out of the wooden display box, while discussing with Jocelyn whether I have enough sewing years left in me to justify the investment a Bernina.  (Jocelyn was smart and bought one a long time ago, but she thought I could still do it, and a couple of days later I did.)

While we went on chatting and strolling I spotted some cubbies of Madelinetosh yarns.  I've been thinking about trying that for a while too and where better to buy some?  I thought for some reason that these two colours would look well together, but I love them both individually too so if they don't, I will still enjoy them.

Then I had to ask about buttons, of the giant variety for the crazy cowls I still have to post the pattern for.  Jocelyn helped me pick out these ones.

Finally, as she tallied up the bill, I spotted the Americo display, which has been the bane of my existence for a while.  I fell in love with Jocelyn's selection of Americo alpaca yarns on my first visit to the shop's previous location - long ropes of heavyweight goodness hanging in the front passageway - but couldn't afford them.  This time my eye fell on an inexpensive skein of 100% llama in a pretty green and I didn't think twice.

It wasn't till I got home and unpacked it all that I noticed something that may not be entirely evident from these pictures, or from the way they appear on your screen.  But after those first two skeins of yarn asked me to take them home? every other thing I chose matched a colour they have in them.

And now if you'll excuse me, I have to get out my ball winder and swift!