The Yarn Room, Ashford, Wicklow

A little while ago we went on a camping trip to Wicklow. On the Saturday I decided to call in to The Yarn Room which is located in Ashford. The Yarn Room began life selling on the web and also as a stall in the market in Dun Laoghaire at weekends. That's where I first met the lovely Stephanie who runs the shop.  She has since gone on to make The Yarn Room a reality. It's a perfect little yarn shop and a yarny oasis.

As luck would have it I dropped in on a day when Stephanie was having a felting and spinning day. I learned how to felt a flower. I can't remember the ladies name but thanks to her for showing me how. I also spun some lovely colourful Icelandic fleece on an Ashford Traveler wheel. It's a lovely smooth wheel and I had a lot of fun spinning and then stopping for a cup of tea and some biscuits. I also loved the look of the plotulopi yarn which is unspun roving that can be spun or stranded together for colour work. As well as the fibre the shop is also filled with fabulous yarns. There's also a whole table of pattern books where one could lose a lot of time.

I did a bit of shopping too. I got a tiny 0.75mm crochet hook, a pack of merino fibre and a gauge for measuring the weight of spun yarn. I can totally recommend a visit to The Yarn Room. Thanks Stephanie!    

Last weekend I visited more yarn shops so I'll tell you about those soon. Work continues on my Annis shawl. It's going really really really slowly. I cast on but had to rip back and cast on again as the cast on edge wasn't looking very nice. The new cast on looks much better. It was going along quite nicely but progress is slow as I'm a slow knitter and there's 363 stitches in a row. Notice the 'it was' in the last sentence. Progress has now slowed to almost non existent. I'm knitting away but well nothing much is happening. I think I've spent the last few days on a purl row. The reason is the nupps, or little balls of screaming annoyance as I like to call them. They are fine to do on the right side but then when it comes to purling seven stitches together it's horrid. It takes forever, I'm even using the aforementioned tiny crochet hook to help. I think I will leave them out on the next row (row 11) and then do them on row 13. I know it's not correct but it may help me to finish the project with my sanity intact. I keep telling myself I only have eight rows to go until I reach the stocking stitch section. Watch this space.