Old Year's Night

Oh what a gloomy day it is here on the coast. Damp, foggy and cold! I'm having a 'stay-at-home-and-get-sorted-out' kind of day today. I like to have the house all clean and tidy for New Year, so have been busying myself with cleaning, washing and generally having a good tidy. Not that our house is particularly messy, but there just seems to have been a general accumulation of 'things' over the holidays. This afternoon, I'll be going up to my craft room with the same intentions! It's become a bit of a dumping ground recently, and there is rather a lot of new yarn to pack away into boxes!

I had a lovely day on Wednesday, meeting up with Erin in London. We visited Loop, a really fabulous yarn shop, in Islington. They have moved premises this year, and have more space to display their wonderful selection of yarns. I could have spent a fortune there, but was quite restrained (for me!), and went with a couple of projects in mind. More of that a little later, but first, I'm sure that you'd like to have a look around Loop yourself, wouldn't you?

We were there a couple of minutes before it opened, so were able to get our woolly fix by looking in the window! There's a washing line with red and green knitted stockings hanging up, with felt letters spelling out 'Happy Christmas', and lots of knitting inspiration. The yarn is arranged by thickness, with 4ply and laceweight downstairs, and double knit and thicker upstairs. There's a good selection of knitting books too, and plenty of places to sit down and browse. Perfect! Go on - have a good squish and a rummage round!

I bought some Casade 220 to knit myself a Central Park Hoodie next year, a skein of Malabrigo Worsted to knit the Brambles beret from Knitty and some Jamieson's Shetland wool to make Caller Herrin. The skein of Shilasdair is to line the brim, so it should make a lovely warm and soft edging. The Regia Design Line that you can see in the photo below was bought later in the day, when we went to Liberty. There seems to be a bit of a colour theme going on, doesn't there! I very nearly went for bright red to knit my CPH, but changed my mind at the till, and went back for the purple!

We spent the rest of the day in Oxford Street and Regent Street, looking for bargains! We did find time to have afternoon tea at Liberty, and ate dainty finger sandwiches, warm scones with clotted cream and jam, and cakes, and drank endless cups of tea. It was just perfect!

However you're celebrating tonight, I wish you a very happy, healthy and peaceful 2011. I'll be back tomorrow with a look back at 2010, and a look forward to 2011. See you next year! xxx