I’ve been knitting for nearly five years now, & in so much time, I’ve barely tried anything in terms of yarn. I bought my first skein of malabrigo to make that red Mairéad hat with, & before then, I’d only purchased a couple skeins of Cascade 220. My stash, as I mentioned in my last post, is completely made up of acrylic.

There are some beautiful acrylic yarns out there — Bernat Satin is a favourite of mine — but I think it’s time to finally start branching out.

A couple days ago, Bradley & I went downtown to scope out vintage shops, & the route I planned just happened to conveniently pass some local yarn shops … I swear. After checking out Franny’s Vintage & The Public Butter on Queen West, I bought some more malabrigo at The Knit Café. One more heart-wrenching, I-want-everything stop at 69 Vintage, & we caught a streetcar to Kensington Market for the last yarn shop Bradley could put up with: Lettuce Knit. I had planned for more malabrigo, but I’ve since been informed that each shop in Toronto orders more or less the same stock, & the company only ships out a few orders to Canada each year. I had to command myself to put down a gorgeous skein of SweetGeorgia sock yarn in Boheme; socks are too far down on my to-do list, unfortunately!

I ended up purchasing some Berroco Lustra, which is 50% Peruvian wool & 50% Tencel. I try to steer clear of synthetics, but it knits up better than it feels in a skein, & really, I couldn’t resist the colour!

I hope to use it for a Calla Lily hat (pictured below), either for myself or for sale. Either way, I hope to write a pattern down — I’m one of those terrible knitters who keeps vague notes as she goes, but never records actual patterns!

I’m really disappointed that I didn’t bring my camera that day, because it was such a fabulous trip with so many great finds! It was really inspiring to see people not much older than myself, running small businesses in such a high-traffic part of town. I would love to explore the city this summer!