Reading material

Instead of socks for my current lunch hour knitting, I decided to knock of something from my knit resolution list  and I've cast on for Susie's Reading Mitts.

I figured the pattern is easy enough to for travel knitting, and since the groundhog predicted at least a few more weeks of cold and snow, there's still plenty of time in the season to enjoy them.

I'm not very far along, this is just one hour of knitting (I forgot to print out the pattern for Monday, so that hour was lost).

I'm using some left over Zara (colourway is stone.) It's one of my favourite yarns to knit with (and wear) and this batch has an interesting story.

It was purchased several years ago at a tent sale held by the Needle Emporium in Ancaster - if you've ever been to one of the Needle Emporium's tent sale, you know you can find some killer deals.But for me, nothing beats the $1 bin - yep skeins and skeins for just $1 each. It was usually more trendy novelty yarns (I've got a nice stash of Baby Monkey thanks to the $1 bin) but if you're willing to dig, there's a few true treasures.

This Zara was one of them. Most of the balls were starting to come unwound working themselves into a tangled mess, and they were scattered through out the bin, but I managed to find 13 of them in the same dye lot  - yep, pure soft, superwash merino for $1 a ball!

Not long after the tent sale, I used nine balls of it to make a Debbie Bliss Cardigan (one of the first full-sized garments I ever knit).

I still wear it frequently, though there's a moth hole in the shoulder I need to repair.

And then a couple of years ago, I used it to make myself a Wildwood Beret...

 Which was designed at the Needle Emporium's knit camp.

It's been used in a few other small projects, including dolly clothes and I'm down to my last few balls - the mitts should probably use it up.

But it's definitely been $13 well spent!