Knitting for a year

If you have ever had to consider what you would take with you from your stash for a years worth of knitting you'll know that there are some tough choices to make. It was the first thing I considered when we decided to head off to the Southern Hemisphere for a year. What about my knitting? What can I bring (luggage restrictions- agh!) ? How do I choose? So I made life much easier for myself. I packed up various yarns and patterns and left them as kits with my mother so should the need overwhelm me I can get her to send me out a package to knit a sweater, cardigan whatever. Clever me!! Of course, they'll probably have yarn shops in New Zealand (what with a population of 70 million or sheep) but one can never be too careful. So, here is what I actually carried with me wool wise to NZ. Two different types of sock yarn, some yarn for a light scarf,yarn for the Apricot Cardigan and my Jaywalkers (will give an update on them next post). Here's all the needles I brought - you can tell I'm figuring that I'll probably knit more than socks a scarf and a cardigan while I'm here. And so we set off on our travels. It didn't take too long for me to add to my little pile. In Hong Kong I found this Not badly stocked eh? I spent some time here and tried to restrain myself - we still had a long way to go before getting to NZ. So, I restricted myself to the following Italian merino.For my stash! Frightening - I bought yarn while travelling and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it - Oops. Still I think I was restrained enough - see how much yarn there is there. Next stop, Auckland or Devonport to me more precise. Devonport is a small town a 5 minute ferry ride from Auckland. We had a quick wander through the streets and Cathal spotted this place before I did (he's well trained!) This shop was really well laid out, had lovely staff and lots of fabulous wools. I couldn't contain myself but I had to. I hoped and prayed that this store was part of a chain and would be able to find an equivalent in Wellington our planned destination for the year, but alas, no, it's just a fab stand alone operation.So, I bought some more sock yarn - will 2007 be the year of the sock for me? Finally getting into knitting socks just as everyone else is now moving onto mittens. I'm a little behind the times in the world of knitting trends. Then I bought these. I think you could actually call this novelty yarn! No one is more surprised than me but I just loved the red and pink combo so I think this is destined for some accessory we'll see. I also bought some needles and a fab wooden shawl pin as I have designs on making one of them in 2007 too! Blogger has decided I've reached my limit picture wise though so I'll have to show you the next time. So, I'm accumulating as I go. I haven't yet checked out the knitting scene here in Wellington - will do so shortly. P.S. All of our travel tales will be on http://wheretwonext.blogspot.com you'll need to hop over there to see life in NZ. I'm keeping this blog for fibre tales.