My Parisian pop spots

The family took advantage of the kids half term and the six of us squeezed in the motorhome for a week of some continental influence in France (Paris mainly) and Belgium (Ghent and Brugge). We all agreed this was a great holiday but absolutely freezing to the bones, snowing and all.. In Paris I dragged everyone to an old favourite knitting spot.

It was still unchanged. You go through the door and long loose loops of yarn are hanged on both walls for you to admire. There is no self service and first after deciding on yarn , color and amount you must queue to be seen by the store 'Madame' in her glass boot high above. English is minimal of course and I have a feeling they all know much more English than they are caring to show..Then you wait whilst your yarn is being wind into balls by some young assistants at the back of the store. I ventured to the back as all yarns were still in cones and this made it easier for me to decide on color pairing. There is a very good collection of buttons but the buttons Madame was no where to be seen and that means going back and queueing for the first scary Madame in the glass boot so decided to give the buttons amiss. I don't know how this store fares in these days of Internet , artisan yarns and ravelry but it is all a bit dated to me and not forth coming..

By the way not too far there is a lovely kitchenware store with some beautiful copper pots and pans. Everything you can think of for the aspiring cook.

Anyway back to knitting- I too succumbed to the pop spots mania :) It is really a lovely shawl designed by Juju from Loop store in London. I already knitted one of her shawls.  Please do have a look in ravelry at other knitter's choices..Now I have a lot of sock yarn to choose from but decided not to knit this shawl to stand out on its own with bold dramatic colors but to be able to blend in with the type of clothes I wear. So my colors are mellow but still bright enough for spring.

(The model is from loop website knitted in Isager tvinni yarn grey and lilac-stunning !)

So in La droguerie shop in Paris I bought two  colors from their alpaca range .I'd say light fingering or 3 ply weight. I wanted to pair yellow and Beige for quite a while . It will look great on grey or navy blue..

The spots are in garter so they do slightly pop out when being squeezed in by the unravelling between them and knitting all the back floating strands at once. I think I'll knit further than the smaller version , the spots effect  look better on a wide fabric ..

Knitting this is very addictive , I'm totally immersed in this one. Do you now have the urge to pop spot ?? :-))

Another slouchy hat - Tod

This hat was born in a school rush, well lots of them. The kids school situated in a rural village with a small car park. Any parent who does not wish to walk some distance to school must arrive early to car park and wait a good 15-20 minutes for the gates to be open. For me this is a pure knitting time and many projects grew like so. By the way the shawlette is Ishbel -such a usefull and pretty little shawl, I may knit a nother one in a lace weight..

I used an easy beautiful rib pattern by Kim Hargreaves- Tod. The yarn is one of my favourites- rowan baby alpaca dk. Its a gorgeous turquoise colour that no longer available. I grabbed 3 balls in the John Lewis sale couple of years ago so this hat is a stash buster.

Remember this hat I've knitted my sister? Well the hat reached its destination and the recipient looks stunning in it :)

Happy !