Oops!

Well, yesterday I was cheered up no end 🙂 The trip to Coldspring was just… Amazing. Their stock is wonderful, but I really wish I could have visited when they had originally bought the Debbie Bliss stuff. It is one of those places where you feel so excited about it you want to tell someone, but dare not in case the luxury of picking things out yourself is spoilt by someone else buying it first, and worse, someone you know! The trip was made a little more frantic by the news that the Debbie Bliss stuff is limited, because much of it was bought when the mills had to change the coating on the yarn to make it more fire resistant. It is still ok to use, but just less than the current stuff you can buy. Once thats gone, they’ll still get the yarns in at a discount, but not to such a fantastic amount as I saved yesterday. The rest of the stock is still lush, with all kinds of non-named brands around the place. I spent more than I planned to, but my mate gave me a tenner towards it as I’d got her some stuff from the Beatties sale, so I only went a tenner over what I planned to spend.
Ok, so here is the first pic of excitement

This pic has some 100% wool black super chunky stuff, which I plan to make a big throw out of (I bought two packs to make sure I have enough, and I’ll swatch to work out the gauge, cast on as many as I need to make the width I want, then just keep going till I run out). The cone is a kilo and a half of DB Cashmerino Super Chunky. There was a HUGE discount on this. To get this much, you’d have to pay about £120 quid full price. I paid 1p a gram, which made it £14.90. Woohoo! I’ll use it to make Simply Marilyn from the Interweave website. I’ve had the pattern on my mind for ages, so this is the only chance I’ll get to make it in the real stuff. Just need to think about what size to make – I want to make a slimmer fit because I’ve heard people have had problems with the sizing, but I feel a bit tentative about making a smaller size. Too big and I’ll look like I’m wearing a sack. The yarn may have been cheap but I won’t get the chance again, so I really want to make it good enough to wear in public in winter…
Bundles of joy number two.

These babies are goodies too. The light green is DB Baby Cashmerino. I got enough of this to make the ballet wrap top for myself in the Cashmere Collection pattern book, with some left over to play with – the yarn is so soft it could make a lovely lacy scarf or some super soft gloves or something. The balls of grey are Cashmerino Aran (DB again). I got two packs for 20 quid, so that makes a saving on that of about £60. They’ll go towards the ribby cardi in the same pattern book, with a bit left over again. The pack of brown I think might be Cathay. It feels a lot like it, but the colour doesn’t match the colour cards on the web, so I don’t know. It is definitely still DB though, and I think it will knit up to the same tension as Cathay to make that bolero from the Cathay pattern book (I got the pattern on its own free from a magazine). If not, then I’ll make a shrug up myself or make a bolero based on the VK pattern. Finally, there is a big ball of variegated yarn that took me about 3 hours to wind from the hank. You can’t see the colours in the pic, but it is full of muted tones of blues, reds, yellows and greens and a bit of orange in there too. It reminds me of Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn in Blueberry Hill, but with some orange thrown in it. Probably sounds vile, but I think it will make a very nice piece of footwear 🙂
Altogether I spent 70 quid, but I saved at least 200 pounds on the retail price, and that’s just based on the ones I mentioned above where I knew the full price. I love Coldspring.
Unfortunately, my stash is now way too big. It may not be as bad as some people have, but when it lives in the lounge, and won’t fit into the lovely stash box, that ain’t good. Let me put it another way – if we have a fire, we better be insured (at the full retail value naturally ;)), and we might not get out the front door because the yarn lives in front of it… I never thought I’d be the kind of knitter who has too much yarn. But I think I can justify yesterday’s purchases because it all has a purpose. I just have to get round to making it up! If I knit the throw first, then that will be a lot of room freed up. Just have to finish some projects first before I start it… Oops!