Giving Moral Support, or

grasping opportunities for stash enhancement? You Be The Judge, as the weekly Guardian column about domestic disputes has it.

Last Friday we went to Aberfeldy to visit Karelia House, somewhere I'm sure I must have posted about on here before. We've only been a couple of times, but it's well worth it; possibly more for sewers than knitters, but don't get me wrong it's a great place for knitters too. They were hosting what they call a Garden Fayre, which basically meant some gazebos in the grounds for craft people of all sorts to fill with their goods and sell them.  It's an annual event and I suspect that on a nice day the place is heaving. Last Friday however was not a nice day and there were  not a lot of people there when we arrived.

We had not gone on the off chance of finding something that we liked, although in passing I note it was a nice long run over varying sorts of road for the new car. No, we had gone because one of the gazebos was being used by Claire of Cookston Crafts and I have been wanting to buy some yarn from  her to knit a particular sweater  for a long time, but it wasn't until I seemed to be being successful with my So Faded sweater that I thought I was justified in spending the money because I had more confidence in my ability to end up with a garment  that fitted. The sweater concerned is the Lace and Fade Boxy which, in a slightly less voluminous form than pictured there, I thought would slip on nicely over a shirt when you need something with a bit of warmth but not too much weight to it. Also I have seen Claire's sample knit numerous times and it is gorgeous. 

We had a nice chat with Claire and it took me a while to decide on the yarn but I ended up with this

I'm hoping it will turn out well.  After buying that, we popped into the shop proper and had a good wander around; we would have had lunch but you'd had to pre-book a table and although there were a lot of empty tables we didn't want to risk the embarrassment of sitting down and then being told to 'clear orf' because we had no booking. Although I'm sure they would have been a lot more polite than that. I did make one small purchase in the shop; a new set of dpns in the size I use for socks. I'm currently using a mishmash of two sets, a metal one and a wood one; some of the wooden ones got lost along the way and a couple of the metal ones got bent, probably by me sitting on them. So I picked up a set in Lykke Driftwood which will also be prone to snapping if I sit on them so I hope very much I can avoid doing so! They're beautiful. If I were thirty years younger I might embark on a project to replace all my needles with Driftwood ones, but I'm not, so I won't. 

We didn't starve, despite not having booked a lunch table at Karelia House  as we knew there was a very nice place to eat called The Watermill in Aberfeldy, which has the advantage of being attached to a book shop. They had no inside tables, a common occurrence there, so we sat outside and crossed our fingers it wouldn't rain. It didn't. 

My sandwich was mild cheddar with apple chutney and poached pear plus a side salad and of course the ever present Elderflower and the OH treated himself to a vegetable curry with flatbread which he tells me was delicious. As was my sandwich. We had a quick browse around the bookshop, a brief foray into the normally excellent second hand bookshop that is just a short stroll away, but which this time threw up nothing I felt compelled to buy, and then came home. 

On Saturday we went up to a place called County Fabrics; where again a friend, coincidentally another Clare, was having a pop-up shop. There were a few others, including a coffee stall raising funds for CHAS  so we had a cup of coffee and a piece of very delicious millionaire's shortbread there. County Fabrics itself was having a sale and so I was interested to see what William Morris Fabrics they had as I am thinking of a bit of a Morris decoration in our bedroom when we get around to it. (Not imminent) In the event they didn't have the one I would want, and which I know you can get from John Lewis already made into curtains so we didn't succumb there but we did buy a couple of tings from Clare's pop up.

I'd decided before we went to get the fox kit because I thought it would be fun knit and not too expensive. We then saw the pattern for the Orkney Hat. Regular readers may well have seen my previous Clare Hats; Stirling and Glasgow skylines and the Forth Bridges. I have lost the latter, I can't remember whether I've posted that sad news on the blog before. I really ought to knit it again because it was lovely to knit,  and my favourite , but not yet....meanwhile I knew Clare had been working on an Orkney hat pattern and I knew the OH would want one, so this seemed a good opportunity to buy the pattern and for him the choose the colours that he wanted, Obviously there was a bit of a green theme going on over the two days. 

So you be the judge; altruistic support for yarn-y friends, or just an excuse to buy more wool?