Jiggity jig

Home again, home again, and other than general travel-weariness, the sensation that I may have eaten at half of Halifax’s eateries in the last 4 days, and mild wonderment over whether the overpriced takeout pizza I am now waiting for is actually a good idea (though the house is currently devoid of people and food, so one has to forage somehow), I’m doing pretty well. Tonight’s going to be some sitting and pondering of knitting present and possible futures, especially in light of purchases this week.

Halifax and its environs are, I feel, doing pretty well in the yarn area of life. My first yarnish stop was at Have A Yarn in Mahone Bay, after visiting Lunenburg earlier in the day. It may well earn the reputation of “most twee signage ever” (and I mean that in a good way):

It’s doing pretty well on the inside, too. You’ll find more Fleece Artist/Handmaiden products than you could possibly want, along with an array of sock yarns, worsteds, and so on. I walked out with some dark purple heather sheepy wool (I cannot resist the sheepy wool) from Lismore Sheep Farm and was well pleased.

In Halifax proper, I waited until Wednesday to visit two shops with my friend Jenn while her husband was busy in a meeting, and this worked out pretty well since Wednesday ended up being the rainiest day of my visit. We went first to LK Yarns, which is the one Jenn has used in the past and enjoys, and I have to say I am inclined to agree. For a small space they pack a solid selection of yarns and have a good balance of traditional faves (oh that wall of Briggs & Little sheepswool, you were lovely but I stayed away), to contemporary trends (they also now have the Malabrigo sock yarn, along with lots of other good things).

Jenn chose a pair of skeins of sock yarn for her first shawl project, and the decision-making process was hard in the good kind of way.

The lion’s share of those brightly coloured skeins are a superwash/nylon hand-dyed sock yarn from Tanis Fiber Arts, a fairly recent-on-the-scene Canadian indie-dyer who was new to me and whose colours are fantastic. Here at LK Yarns I purchased a shawl’s worth of my own, which turned out to be just the right colour match to some begonias in the Halifax Public Gardens….

I feel no shame in admitting I picked up another couple of skeins of this (they are gifts, GIFTS I tells ya) at our final stop at Loop Craft Cafe, in the downtown area.

They’re a small but friendly shop, with a precision selection that I feel complements LK Yarns pretty well. I liked looking through the patterns and chose one to bring home as well. All in all there were some good finds to be had.

Afterwards we sat across the street and chilled for a bit at ‘Just Us’ cafe, where my 2nd sock of the pair got a few more rows in. I cast off that sock on the flight home today, in possibly a record-breaking sock-finishing speed even for me. I’ll catch up in a later post with more details and some FO pics for that and the Jaywalkers I finished on the flight down.

For now, though, food and clutching yarn will do me fine. I hope all’s well in your part of the world!