Friday, August 01, 2008

London & Loop!

In London here. I popped across the pond to come to a school reunion in Wales, and I have a few delicious days in the city beforehand. All I want to do here is walk, walk, walk! and observe things and reacquaint myself with this city that I used to know. And, of course, visit yarn stores along the way.


The premier destination of yesterday's 8 mile walk was Loop. It's a darling and colorful place with beautifully composed scenes tucked about: a collection of vintage buttons in apothecary jars, a basket of knitted dolls, swatches hanging as a garlands, and pom poms strung up in the windows.


I picked up four skeins of Rowan's purelife yarn, which is a naturally-dyed organic cotton that I've been coveting and which was on sale there. My plan is to make a simple camisole, like my green one from last week. Of course, this being my London yarn, it had to be a steely gray. But I'll stripe it with bit of pink.


Next stop was the famous Liberty store. I marveled at their fabrics and Rowan selection, and I found a sweet cotton ribbon to match my gray and pink yarn.


The last treat for me came in the post. I've been hankering for Garthenor's organic wool yarns ever since I came across them in my Green Knitter research. I ordered a hat's worth of their DK Loghtan Sheep yarn, and it came promptly in the mail to my friend's flat here.


Another time I'll tell you about trying to track these four-horned sheep down on the Isle of Man, which is why I have a special place in my heart for this rare wool. This yarn - and this place - is a wonderful trigger of memories.

4 comments:

  1. Hmmmm - looking forward to the story - sounds interesting!!

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  2. Ooooooo, can't wait to see the finished product of the grays and pink and ribbon! Wonderful combination!

    How does that organic wool feel? It's probably because the color resembles burlap, but it just looks so scratchy! Of course it can't be, because how could anyone ever knit something to wear from it?

    Have a fun reunion. Loved the use of the word "post" for mail!

    Kim

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  3. Wow. Great Yarn shop. I want to go sit there all day on saturday. Just dreamin

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  4. Anonymous1:42 PM

    Jealous! When I finally found Loop (after wandering around from the Slug and Lettuce for a long while) I found that it was closed... and it was a Monday.

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