Nova Scotia, Part II

Isn't this a spectacular view from our hotel room window in Sydney?

The scene was beautiful from a cozy chair in our room. But after breakfast the next morning, I came to realize that I had to venture out into that frigid atmosphere, rent a car, and forage for some yarn. I had some handspun with me, but one needs souvenirs, doesn't one?

Moraff's is in an older building located right in Sydney. It is stacked from the floorboards to Victorian high ceiling with a formidable number of plastic-sheathed clusters of yarn. There was a ton of Patons, Bernat and similar "workhorse" yarns. Not much luxurious, frivolous stuff here!

No books that I could see either, but there was an enormous rack of pamphlets. There were also dozens of binders along the long ledge behind the counter, all stuffed with patterns dating back decades. What a gold mine for vintage pattern seekers!

The owner was a charming, diminutive lady with white hair and inquisitive eyes. I decided this might be just the place to get some superwash wool and a pattern for my twin nephews' new Aran sweaters. Declan wanted green, and Riley wanted red.

When I described what I was looking for, I was promptly handed a Patons booklet and 13 skeins of Bouquet Marina superwash wool in red. No poking around in those stacks for me!

Green was harder. The first color she showed me was not what I had in mind. Dear Owner then pulled out some skeins of Briggs & Little "Heritage". (It might as well have been named "Brillo and Little"!) It is clearly not superwash, but she briskly sold me this extremely scratchy "good local wool". IMHO, it is completely unsuitable for a child's machine-washable sweater, but the "good local wool" is a good local souvenir. It will become a Lucy bag if it felts the way I think it will.

Back at the hotel, I read the fine print on the Bouquet Marina superwash. it said, "Machine wash for 2 minutes. Machine dry for 5 minutes." Uh-oh... it seems I have the Paleolithic version of superwash. A Google search for it later turned up nothing except a few lonely skeins on eBay and an indication that Bouquet was sold to Spinrite years ago - likely before there was an internet.

Batting a big zero now for the boys' Aran sweater yarn.
Ah well.
Next: The most fabulous knit shop I've ever seen!