My trip today to Ram's Wools

[nicolethegeek]

Well I went to Ram's today hoping to come home with some bamboo dpns, my first Addi circ, and the wool for my booger {bigger + booga = booger!}. Well, I came home with 2 balls of Kroy, a pair of 2.00 mm 10" straights, a wool kit for some fuzzy mittens or socks, and a tentative order for some Regia! :roflhard:

They didn't really have any Boxing Day sales on, just their regular sale stuff. They had quite a bit of Kroy on clearance, so I picked up 2 balls to make myself a subdued pair of blue socks {Westport check; two very close shades of denim in a marl}. I found where they had the thrummed mitten kits, but a fuzzy gob of wool in a gorgeous lilac shade called out to me instead. It's got a Fleece Artist pattern attached to it, and the fibre on it says: Mohair & Blue Face Leicester. I found out that the Selkirk Wool {their house brand} doesn't felt all that well, so it's not a good choice for the booger. They recommended either Lopi or Patons Classic. I found some really nice colours in the Lopi, but it will felt fuzzy. The Classic will be a smoother felt, but the only colour that really jumped out at me was the deep violet. I wish they would have had a pale silvery grey that I could use as a base colour for the tote. I'm going to have to sleep on this a bit more and then go back when my mind is totally made up. I may just decide to do Hudson's Bay stripes if I can't find something to go with the violet. They were out of stock on the 2.75mm bamboo dpns that I wanted. They may have had them in the SB, but I wanted the nice SR Kertzer ones like I bought the 3.25mm in the last time I was there. I found a basket of Aero needles, and the smallest they had was 2.00mm. I want to do some fine knitting for the girls' dolls... perhaps some scarves or something similar out of fingering yarn or my crochet thread. Before I went, I found some really cool new Regia yarn in my Mary Maxim catalogue, so I asked them if they could order it in. If they can, Derek and I will be getting BC socks for him and Manitoba socks for me! :D

I'm off to go play with my new wool before I go to sleep. I gotta work tonight and then I'm off for four nights! :happydance:

[Ingrid]

And do we get to SEE your new yarn??? Sound like a great place!

[nicolethegeek]

I'll be able to take pics a little later on once everyone is up. I want to get it balled up today too. I'm just starting 4 days off, and I'd like to at least have them cast on by the time I go back to work on Wednesday night.

Rams is a great place, and I'm fortunate {or is that unfortunately for hubby?} enough that it's only a 10 minute drive from here. Their main business is mail order and online shopping (www.ramwools.com). I found out that they offer classes too, but none of the late winter/spring ones match up with my goofy schedule.

[Ingrid]

I get their catalog and drool over it. I think it's a very, very good think it's not 10 minutes from me!!

[nicolethegeek]

The problem is that the web site and the catalogue do NOT do the store justice. They have a mini-library of books. Imagine Michael's entire book section devoted entirely to knitting with a side order of crochet. That is a start!!! There was 5 or 6 {at least} of those rotating racks with single patterns in them... at least 5 patterns per "spot". What I thought was cool is that the single sheet patterns come in a sheet protector! Every knitting magazine known to man is displayed "somewhere" in the shop, and there's no extra charge for older issues! Most of the wool is on bookshelves. Reach as high as you can, and that's the top shelf for most of them, and there was at least 3 or 4 long aisles like that, and 2 or 3 that were half height. On some of the imported yarns, there's no English on the label, so you're wondering what this gorgeous ball of fluff is made of. The clearance section is one whole side of an aisle, with more than enough for whatever project you want to make. That's not including the clearance stuff that's mixed in with the regular stock. Piled high on the tops of every available bookshelf is bags of MORE wool {for the buy the bag discounts and overstock}. All kinds of kits that they've assembled when you can't make up your mind on your own. The best part of it all is that the ladies that work there don't have my-shop-only tunnel vision. They will talk about knitpicks, Mary Maxim, and even Wal-Mart!!! We were talking about WOTA and the booga bag, and I told them about my STR and where I got it. They won't try to sell you something you don't need, or won't get a lot of use out of. The clerk talked me out of the Addi I was going to buy yesterday... that's okay, I went and picked up the fuzzy yarn kit instead!

Looking all this over, I guess Winnipeg has got a little piece of heaven tucked into a corner of an industrial park... we deserve it with the {usually} lousy weather! :roflhard:

[Ingrid]

:inlove: Sounds wonderful! Webs was similar--yarn and patterns everywhere you look, full bags at discount, and a warehouse with mile-long aisles. So we know for sure, now, that each country has it's own heaven. :angelgrin: