Stash from Americay

Hoooo, this week I am home from my holidays in  Amerikay, -  Philadelphia, the Civil War Trail down the east and finishing up with a few days in New York, the city that never sleeps, or in our case, the city that walks the legs off you. And, like all tourists coming home from America, I did some shopping. Unlike most tourists, or as I prefer to think of myself, a traveller, I brought home some stash. Legal I must reassure you.

First up was Loop Knits in Philadelphia. Now, I know I have yet to knit the cardigan with wool bought here exactly 2 years ago. The "exactly" is because we seem to make a stateside pilgrimage every spring. This time a display caught my eye coming through the door, a scarf and I'm a sucker for scarves. Because I a returner to knitting, I still get a little flustered in wool shops. When I brought up the one skein and the pattern, both part of the display, I was told I needed to buy two skeins if I wanted to use that wool. I promptly skipped off to get another skein. But ... I really only picked that wool because it was the display wool. I would have been equally happy, and so would the bank manager, with one skein of the prescribed wool! Because of the individuality of  dye these wools aren't dye coded and I think in my excitement I didn't try to balance out the blues. No matter, one end will be a slightly different hue to the other end.

 I also got this nifty knitting bag. Miss C in England has a few, and I had knitting bag envy. So, I got one for myself and one for Miss J, my new friend,  in America.

Next up was Fabric Row, in Philadelphia,  suggested to me by Miss J. We all headed off to Fabric Row. Unfortunately Fabric Row has been subject to the recession, some of the fabric shops are closed down. Those that remain are mostly fantastic soft furnishing fabrics with smatterings of quilting cottons here and there. I bought 4 yards of this on trend red and white chevron for $6 a yard. The perfect backing for my 2016 stash bee red plus quilt. In the next shop, I got barracked for not coming to their much better shop first. Apparently their chevron fabric was much superior. I left with my ears ringing with the barbed comment "that of course you cant help people who like to shop in inferior shops!"

Next up was the Holy Grail of Purl Soho in New York. I kind of had in my mind I would love some Blueberry mini fabric, or some Karen Lewis textiles fabric. However, the lead fabric in Purl Soho was Doe, which is wonderful, but I bought a suitcase full of it last Easter. They had some great Kauffman railway fabrics, but overall they were very dark in hue. Too dark for the holiday mood shopping. So, I bought lots of end rolls all beautifully packaged. Some are Doe to add to my collection and some just random spots and stripes. And some lovely Essex Linen. I think I might embroider a name cushion on the Essex Linen, but this is a 1/2 yd remnant and most cushions are larger than that.

The husband came up trumps. He found me a new compendium of crafts in Purl Soho. What's not to love? I love me a book. I also loved the cashmere ombre scarf kit on display. Was very tempted but one scarf to knit a holiday is probably enough. Maybe next Easter.

Now for Stash out, I finished my Coins Quilt for my dad. He seemed suitably underwhelmed, but he always does that when you give him a gift. He's very shy, tomorrow he'll phone me. I'm saving these photos though for another blog post.

I also started a scarf for my Le Challenge of "Fine". Told you I liked scarves. I actually started scarf no 1 with what I believed to be Liberty fabric. Now I'm not so sure it is Liberty.

 So, I have started scarf  no 2 with what is definitely Liberty fabric.

 

Any experts on Liberty fabric - Molli - anybody?

Helen x
linking up with Sunday Stash with Molli Sparkles