Knit Picky: Laguna: Yarn, Candy & Surf

"properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit...
and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either."
~elizabeth zimmerman

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Laguna: Yarn, Candy & Surf

My sweet boy took me on a mini-mini break to Laguna Beach, CA yesterday (we drove down Tuesday night and returned last night). We ate nice meals, stayed in a cute little motel, walked, hiked, went to the yarn shop (good Boy!), played in the tide pools...[sigh]. How lovely.

For pictures of the trip itself, I'm going to refer you to my other blog and the post for today. Mainly because I'm just far too lazy to post all those things again!

Here I'm going to show you a couple of my favorite acquisitions from the trip: yarn & candy from 'across the pond'.

First up, yarn from Strands & Stitches:

That is Rowan Wool Cotton in the purple (without a skein wrapper) and Crystal Palace Waikiki sitting on top of it -- these babies were 40% off! And then two skeins of Wildfoote sock yarn for The Boy, and two skeins of Artyarns Supermerino, por moi! (I'm kicking myself for not actively begging the boy for the one 40% off skein of Rowan All Season's Cotton in a gorgeous eggplant color -- it was, like, $5!) Anyway, the other yarns are just yummy.

And speaking of yummy, here's some candy that I can't wait to sink my teeth into.

I should perhaps mention that I am a die-hard anglophile, and I absolutely had to try candy that comes from abroad. I've actually had the (Australian) Violet Crumble before, but couldn't resist the 16 pence mini Milky Way bar, or the Aero mint chocolate bar. The place we got the candy at was so well-stocked with candies from our childhood (I also got Nerds and rootbeer barrels, while The Boy got Big League Chew and Zotz) and from European countries, that I absolutely had to bring some home with me.

To date I'd only ever read about Minstrels, Dairy Milk Bars and Cadbury Buttons, but there they all were. Alongside some that I've tried like Wine Gums (that was tough to pass up; they are SO yummy) and Smarties (did you know that Smarties in the UK are entirely different from the tarts that we call Smarties here? They are more like M&Ms). I wish I could have bought one of everything. I'm such a sucker for all things British. In fact, The Boy and are going to honeymoon in the UK next year to try to satisfy my needs. Mmmm, UK candies, watch out. Hmm, I'm starting to sound like Super Eggplant. ;)

Man, I've gotta get me a contact in the UK to send me tasty stuff like this periodically!

P.S. Remember the Monster Sock? Well, here it is now:

It had to be ripped back to the heel. The good news is, it wasn't entirely my fault. There was an error in the pattern, and instead of following logic, I stuck with the pattern. I found the perfect explanation for this lunacy in Stephanie's book At Knit's End (if you haven't gotten it yet, get it, you'll thank me later): on page 14 she talks about the ability of knitters to deny the obvious and proceed with what is clearly a knitting monstrosity. That would be The Monster Sock That Is No More. We're trying again. I'll keep you posted. :)

2 Comments:

Hey,
you can get some of those candies in Canada; Milky way, Aero (regular and mint), Smarties. Coffee Crisp. Want me to send down a care package sometime? Just say the word.

By jodi, at 1:11 PM
What a good boy you have! Sounds like a BLAST! PS--glad you're back and glad you've got such a GREAT job! woo hoo

By Christine, at 9:25 AM

2 Comments:

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