Stash Enhancement

The leaves are wonderful in the Grove. I call the Man and with minimal complaining he puts some shoes on to come and kick through them with me.

Is it really only Monday? It feels like Thursday after a week of getting over some sort of virus. I'm shattered. Mum and I have been up at Ally Pally since Wednesday and got back late last night, following traffic jams on the M25. The hotel we were staying in was Fawlty Towers-esque, so sleep was low on the likely list. On the first night we were in the overspill room, which was thick with dust even on the bedside tables, and had very thin curtains with a floodlight outside. On the other nights we were in a room at the front of the house, and mum's bed was in the bay window about 5 yards away from the all-night bus route. Nice. We are quiet country folk and not used to all this noise and electric bulb-age!

Also four nights of eating out and four mornings of trying to find an alternative to full English breakfast makes for a rather bloated and unhealthy couple of people.

What was quite nice though was that the other people staying at the hotel all seemed to be at the show too, so we could swap notes over the breakfast table. It's nicer to network over a cup of tea than over a trade stand while you are steeling yourself before the public to come in and swamp you.

Here is a pic of our stand:


Here is a pic of the shopping I managed to do over four days:


Silk and fluff from Knitwitches, Scrumptious and something glitzy from Fyberspates (Noblin introduced me to Jenny who was very polite even though she was thoroughly harrassed), laceweight from Touchyarns, nothing from Socktopus (where I valiantly resisted and bought nothing because I've signed up to the Sock Club for next year, but I did meet Alice), Lorna's Laces and Koigu from Get Knitted, as well as a set of Options circs, two balls of black lurex to knit some hotpants for pole dancing (yes Puss, it might actually happen!) from Wear Downey, and a couple of books which have been raved about (rightly) online lately - Closely Knit and Inspired To Knit. I have to thank The Man for wading through my extensive Amazon wishlists over the phone to find these titles for me. He did ask at one point, 'God, are you 65??', based on some items on there. I have yet to discover which item prompted that comment but he will be made to explain himself!!

Mum even was convinced to start her own stash, with some Touchyarn, some Scrumptious from Fyberspates, and some gorgeous handspun mulberry silk from Di Gilpin. She always has to go one better!!

I am still thrashing my way through the Baby Cables jumper. I've got to row 16. This is ridiculously slow, but I think I'm gathering pace as I get back into doing cables. I hope I get past the cables soon and into some mindless circling, and that the DK knits up a bit quicker in st st rather than garter st! I'm also finding the little rubber hairbands I'm using as stitch markers from Claire's Accessories (who have the rudest surliest staff in the T Wells branch I have ever come across and I'm never going back in there again if I can help it) stop the knitting moving around the needle without some good encouragement, which is a bit of a pain. I'm looking forward to getting rid of them as I finish the cable and increasing section.