My Sicilian knitting

I've just came back from a short break in Sicily. We stayed in an apartment in Catania with stunning views of Mount Etna. No matter how hot it was this revered volcano was always covered in snow and generated its own micro climate. It felt special to sit down on hot sand with my swimming suit on knitting and feeling the warm sun rays on my skin watching this magnificent white mountain.

There are a lot of shops selling tasty specialised  sweets. I took photo of those sugary woolly herds commonly seen in this time of the year.

There is not much to report on the wool front. I've encountered quite a few 'wool' shops but most yarn was a disappointing acrylic junk. If you're after cottons you'll be in more luck especially for the crocheters. Also it is very rare for a yarn shop to hold a stock of buttons or 'buttoni'. I've discovered a beautiful shop in the fabric street in Catania town centre with gorgeous buttons but they were horrendously expensive comparing to the ones in the UK department stores. I seem to be attracted to the 12 euro per button types which according to the shop seller was designer buttons. In the end I lowered my sight to more affordable but still ever so pretty black enamelled buttons surrounded by shiny 'stars' and a few interesting spotty blue glass buttons. Don't be shy to haggle even in established stores , I knocked off 10 euros off the shiny black ones..

As to my holiday knitting project I've packed two caked skeins of uncommon threads silky merino lace in 'toast' bought in the 'yarn over Berlin' shop. As you can see I'm well progressed with my Rocio designed by the talented Joji Locatelli which also happens to have her birthday today :-) Once the lace bit at the back in finished its pretty much mindless knitting. In 7 days I've  finished one ball or 600 meters worth of thread. The yarn is light and although it is single plied there is hardly any piling at all and is quite strong. I'm besotted with the yarn and planned to buy more as soon as the shop restocks. It is hand dyed by Ce, one of my all times favourite hand dyers. The silk just takes the dye beautifully and it is a sophisticated colour -you can see flecks of silver and bronze. The yarn comes alive and although lace , it has substance and grip to it when knitting it. 5 stars yarn in my opinion..

 

Here is my progress so far. The lace part is not blocked yet and you can see the start of the pleats.
Good bye for now , I took some photos wearing Catboat. It always helps to see a garment on somebody and not just the dummy..