New year, new stuff

Last Monday was gorgeous - cold but sunny. Too windy for a walk, but not too windy for a drive. So I headed up north, to Knitting Today. You see, they were having a pre-inventory clearance sale and I was invited. Heh.

Actually, I had been planning to visit KT for a while, ever since I dropped some stitches on the Minimalist Cardigan. (And no, I have not yet pieced that thing together yet.) I use small crochet hooks to pick up dropped stitches, but picking up dropped double seed/moss stitches requires switching the hook from front to back to front again. I wished for a crochet hook with hooks on both ends. A few days later, while perusing the KT website, I found just what I was looking for.







I don't quite get the idea for creating seed stitch after the fact, unless this is a machine knitting thing (and KT is the place to be if you are a machine knitter), but I definitely could see using this for picking up dropped stitches. They sell online as well as out of the store, so you don't need to live in northeast Indiana to get one of these babies. They are handmade by KT, so I doubt you will find them anywhere else.

While in the store, I examined a lot of yarn, but succumbed to purchasing only the following.



It is DK weight self-striping sock yarn, just what I was looking for pre-xmas. The only drawback is I would prefer superwash merino and this is an acrylic/wool blend. But my son tends to toss everything into the wash willy-nilly, so I knit his socks from yarn that can stand up to a laundromat.

The sale items that really sucked me in, though, were the books: 30% off! That is competitive with Amazon. And the selection was great. I scarfed (heh) up the following:



I have knit a few triangular shawls, but they don't seem to fit me very well. I'm thinking the gentle shaping of the ones in Myrna's book will remedy that.



My maternal grandparents were from Denmark, so I have always been interested in things Danish. I checked this book out from the library a while back, but now I have my own copy.



One reason I made no significant yarn purchase at KT the other day is I am color-challenged. Occasionally, I luck out, but usually I am clueless when it comes to mixing and matching colors. But I am also trainable, so I'm hoping this book will help. The local library has this book on its shelves, but the color "tools" were missing.