Tuesday 27 April 2010

Stash?

A quick trip to Saskatchewan last weekend, resulted in a little stash enhancement.  

There is a marvelous yarn store there, Prairie Lily Knitting and Needlework   I enhanced there last year when I was on my way to Stitches Saskatchewan.  Good things. They carry one of the finest alpacas I have ever handled.  Foxwood Alpaca is a local grower out of Lumsden, just a hop down the road from Saskatoon.  Truly lovely stuff, but I left them behind.  Sigh.  

I stopped with a very clear target in my head.  Prairie Lily carries a very large and marvelous stock of Briggs and Little.  

She has slightly less in stock now.  2 sweaters worth was my goal, and the heathered blue grey and soft greyed green were a marvelous  end to my quest.  The gratuitous extras just fell into my basket by accident. (I could have had a sweaters worth of the red, but I was virtuous.  I could have had a sweaters worth of the cream, but I resisted.)

There was room in the big yarn sweater bin, so it is hardly stash enhancement.  It was stash maintenance.  

Really.

I love the feeling of these small mills yarns (though Briggs and Little is hardly small).  I love how you sink your fingers in and you know that this stuff comes from sheep.  You know it is only one step away from the farm.  There is a trueness, a clarity of purpose and a simplicity that appeals very strongly to me. 

For all that there are hundreds of soft delicious yarns on the market,  for all that I have a goodly stock of these in my stash, sometimes I just need to feel a closer connection to where I come from. It is like knitting with a little piece of home. 

2 comments:

Brendaknits said...

To me part of the appeal is that it is Canadian. What sweaters are you making with your B&L?

Sandra said...

No worries, I have a sweater's worth of both the red and the cream, so the universe is in sync...

You know you can order B&L directly from them? It's a quick phone call and delivered right to your door - very dangerous.

Andone of these days, we should work out a trade for some of that luscious local alpaca - I'm drooling just thinking of it...