Canada Post Came Thru

Mail call!! I don't get much in the mail department so I don't check the box that often. But, I fell off the wagon & bought a couple of things in the dead of the night with my handy dandy credit card, Ooooops.

And so what did I buy??? A couple of books I've been wanting for ages. Sometimes, you don't need or want just another book about Techniques or Patterns. I also love the Stories & the History of the tools in my hands.

I bought 'The Old Hand Knitters of the Dales' by Marie Hartley & Joan Ingilby in paperback. I'd seen it on Sale for $500 in hardback & almost that much in paperback on eBay but it was always out of MY price range. I finally found a copy I could afford. This is not new stuff but an updated version of the original book published just after WWII. I haven't had a lot of time to read it yet since I opened the other one first, but what I have seen looks very interesting! It's a history of knitting in the Yorkshire Dales. A story of the local people & local wool that helped make England rich before the Industrial Revolution.

I also bought 'In the Footsteps of Sheep' by Debbie Zawinski which I'd wanted since it was published last year. I wanted it so badly that I opened the package as soon as I got home on Friday & sat down with it to look inside. And then spent the rest of the evening reading it. And I continued to read it the next  morning as I ate my Cheerios & blueberries. In the end, I spent the whole weekend, to the detriment of everything else, reading the book.
And I love the book. I love that it's the story of people, of traveling & wool; of finding bits of fleece on the peat or in the bushes; of spinning that raw fleece into yarn on a stick & knitting it into socks as she meandered from place to place. I love that it has little hand drawn maps showing the route in each chapter, the method of travel & interesting spots along the way. It's not really a knitting book although it has patterns for socks, but it isn't a spinning book either, although Debbie writes about the characteristics of the wool she finds & the Scottish breeds it comes from. It's more of a Sock maker's travelogue or a Spinner's rustic walk-about in several of the Wooly Meccas of the world. You don't have to buy the book  but you do have to read it, especially if you spin, love fleece & knit socks.

My second package didn't even get opened until Saturday morning!! Inside I found a new Project bag & a cake of sock yarn. They were from the Yarn Harlot's Karmic Balancing draw for goodies for everyone who contributed to the annual PWA(People with Aids) Ride she & her TEAM make from Toronto to Montreal. Love the Bag & the yarn which matches the bag. Woohoo