Well? What did you buy then?

Who said that they didn't find any yarn shops in Rome? The only trouble I had with them was yarn overflow. Guess who came home with more than two kilos of new yarn? No wonder my suitcase gave up and a wheel fell off. I wouldn't have missed any extra weight in the luggage.

Thanks to Niina, there was an excellent story of yarn shopping in Rome in the very first issue of Ulla, the Finnish knitting magazine. I had printed her story plus a listing of some of the most promising shops, and those surely kept me entertained during the flight. Even when just wandering around the city I kept finding small yarn shops here and there, and was I glad that there wasn't too much extra space in my bags.

Yarn shops in Italy - lankakauppoja Italiassa:
Italian Yellow pages. Type 'filati' in the 'cosa'(what) box and the name of the city/area in 'dove' (where) box. And off you go...



Ulla...eiku Niina Roomassa

Cafilan

This was a bit out of my route, but maybe next time?


From the left:
What: 100 % pure wool, needle size 2-3mm. White.
Why did you buy it: This is not fluffy, chunky, uneven or fancy in any way, so I think it should be perfect for knitting a couple of lace scarves. And that's after I've released my creativity and dyed it first. Can hardly wait.

What: Grignasco's Nature yarn, 50 % merino wool, 50 % alpaca. Off-white.
Why? Did you read what I wrote above? Do I have to find reasons? I AM NOT A YARN SNOB, in fact, quite a big part of my stash is something else than pure wool, but this yarn just won me over. It's soft and rustic at the same time, not too refined. I just wish I had a Labrador I could take out for a walk when wearing a sweater made of this yarn.
















On the left 100 % wool, its colour is somewhere between soft orange and toffee. It was the very last ball, and I'll use it for felting.
On the right some velvet/chenille yarn in deep shades of red, burgundy and black. It's joined some other balls in the same colour family, but I'm not sure what they'll turn into.

















And of course, when in Rome, or when in Italy, you just *have* to buy some of that soft mohair yarn they produce. On the top you see the details of the big hank of blue/violet mohair yarn I just couldn't resist, even though it was a bit pricey. I kept telling myself it's just one hank, it's not that much, but since I don't have a kitchen scale at home, I still don't know how much that one hank weighs. Several hundred grams in any case and it's relatively thing yarn, so I might be in for surprise how far it'll take me. And those smaller amounts were just souvenirs. Once again, both the material and colours were something you don't see every day, so resistance was futile. Funny thing: I started knitting a shawl using that pale lilac shade on the right. The shawl itself was finished during my trip, but now I'm getting desperate with the borders! First I couldn't find a pattern I liked, and when I did, I couln't figure it out. SO frustating! Finally it started to make sense and I've been working on it for like three days, without too much visible progress.










And then, finally, the patterns. The knitting magazine is not as bad as it may seem, I just picked the worst piccies to show you. When looking at them, it's hard to believe that Italians are renown for their style and elegance. I just hope he got a handsome reward for his efforts. Obviously I passed a treshold with my yarn purchases, since the maga was thrown in for free, and then I bought the Marie Claire guide for two good reasons: I needed to find a lace pattern so I could start knitting something using the mohair yarns presented above, and besides, the knitting terms were explained in Italian so this could be used as a reference book. We-hey! Couldn't be happier.