Booty

Greetings once again from Japan.

Pictures have been updated here, and you can even see a couple of really cool videos here.

But more importantly, here's the yarn chronicle I promised. Are you ready? It's a lot of pictures.

First off, did you know you can buy Hello Kitty yarn? Of course you can. You can buy Hello Kitty everything.

I even have a Hello Kitty toaster.

I've yet to identify the fiber type, but it feels like acrylic. It's more trophy yarn than anything I'm actually going to knit though.

There's also a Japanese brand called Puppy, which is adorable.

This is some linen silk that was 50% off.

I also picked up some mohair blends in pure white



and a pretty subtle blend.

It says, " It had the Graduation with long pitch Newly. How about warmhearted?"

How about warmhearted, indeed. These are bound to become shawls, I'm sure. Who can resist a mohair shawl?

I also snagged some angora silk that was on sale.

It may be made in France, but it was angora silk on sale. I don't really need to justify that.

But wait a minute, you must be saying. Isn't Japan the land of Noro?

Why yes. Yes it is. And it's cheap here too.

Here's some Cotton Iroha I got on sale. It's a cotton/cashmere blend. Don't know what it's going to be yet, but the colors look fun.

But the piece de resistance is the massive amount of Cash Iroha I bought. You should be aware of this yarn, if you're not already. It's a wool/silk/cashmere blend, and it's going to be heaven.

I bought quite a bit of it, which was my big yarn investment for the trip. It's 12 skeins - enough to be a cardigan.

Enough to be a cardigan with these buttons.

I told you that you could get Hello Kitty everything. So this will be the perfect souvenir sweater from Japan - Noro yarn with Hello Kitty buttons.

I also bought some other yarn-related things. First is a book on Nordic knitting. Most of the text is in Japanese, but the instructions have English with them as well. There seem to be a few cool techniques in here I haven't seen before.

They do have some really cool patterns here, and the truth is, it would be possible to understand. Everything is charted, stitch by stitch.

I hate charts though.

Some of you may remember me complaining about how they should make circular needles small enough for the cuffs of socks.

Well, they do.

And I bought one. It's a mere 22cm around (that's about 8.8 inches). Unfortunately, the smallest size they had was a 4, which is a bit big for socks. The novelty factor was high enough, though, that I couldn't resist. Especially because I had been complaining about this about a week before.

I also bought a clever little needle holder with a handful of needles in it. Forgot to pack those.

Also, nearly done with the first travel pair of socks. But they deserve their own post.

Please don't try to figure out how much I spent on yarn. It will only hurt. And I've gotten other cool souvenirs here too, for everyone in my family and myself. Maybe when I go home and get dressed up in my yukata (the light, summer kimono) I'll put up a picture of that.