Goldhawk Road haul and two finished scarves

I was in London this weekend for a pre-birthday treat to myself (my actual birthday is this week). I stayed with my friend B, who also sews and was therefore willing to accompany me fabric shopping (although she didn't buy anything herself). Thus on Saturday we trekked across the pretty much the whole of London to go to Goldhawk Road for my second break from my fabric buying fast. When I moved to Ireland I decided I had TOO MUCH FABRIC and couldn't buy any more this year with two exceptions: the Dublin K&S show at the beginning of this month (where I bought just under 9m of fabric), and this trip to London, where I bought 14m. The only time I broke the rule was when I bought the sheets to use as fabric for my two Washi dresses in the summer, so I am actually really happy with my willpower! I went to London with a list of possible fabrics/colours/etc that would fit into the wardrobe I want to sew over the next 12 months, a budget and a very hard limit that whatever I bought had to fit into my little carry-on bag to come home to Dublin.


On my list were some requirements for lining fabrics for a variety of forthcoming garments. I bought 10.5m of various ridiculous colours and styles because I love a wild lining in an otherwise sober and sensible garment (the blue animal print, white blobby print, leopard print and blue tulip print are all lining fabrics). I also bought 2m of classic stripy shirting, and my absolute favourite purchase, 1.5m of gorgeous lace. The lace was a bit of a splurge, price-wise, and actually in the shop for some reason I thought it was stretch lace and it turned out not to be so that scuppered the original plan I had when I bought it. On the plus side, it's totally in my colour palette, I loooove it and I've already had way more ideas than I have fabric for what to do with it even though it's not stretch. Overall, I'm calling the fabric buying trip a win.

Meanwhile, I also made my friend B a tiny little gift of a scarf before I went. The yarn is Sirdar Firefly, and I bought it at the local yarn shop in Booterstown when I bought the yarn for my Gap-tastic cowl. It didn't photograph very well, unfortunately!

This is a really skinny, interesting yarn with two metallic and black threads connected by little squares in blues and greens. I picked up a single skein so, in order to make a scarf long enough to be useful to wear, I decided to knit it fairly narrow (20 stitches of garter stitch) and on my massive 15mm needles. (I tried on 9mm needles first but it wasn't quite what I wanted). It made for a very delicate looking, airy knit, but I think the scarf actually looks best sort of scrunched and twirled up together like a rope. I decided I wanted to make & gift this at the last minute and I am not 100% happy with the cast on row, but I didn't have time to fix it before I left.

To amuse myself in the boring parts of the travel experience (airports/the plane), I also took another little Aldi scarf kit with me. This red scarf is identical to the purple version I made at the start of October. It's really tremendously unexciting, but it was the perfect travelling knitting project because it required zero brain power. I really need to stop knitting scarves though now. Jumpers or death!