I have been lucky enough to spend some great time knitting in Paris, with somewhat mixed results. On the one hand, I lost half of a sweater in a cab ride on the way to a knitting meetup with my Anny Blatt friends. (Sob!!!) On the other hand, earlier I got to join a knit night at L’oisivethé, presided over by the owner, Aimee, and later, I visited her store. So the positives have at least balanced out the negatives!
L'oisivethé
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s how ephemeral life and even my projects can be. That’s the whole reason I’m in Paris to begin with—as my father and I grow older, it’s really important for me to spend time as I can with him. We’ve been to several museum exhibits and a performance of Beethoven’s seventh symphony, and in the meantime, I’ve been squeezing knitting in here and there.
Unfortunately, the sweater I’ve been laboring on for almost a year now on size 1 needles is living it up royally without me, riding around the best neighborhoods in Paris in the back of a taxi. I can’t blame Vilma for her great escape. Who wouldn’t want to live in Paris all year round? You can see her lurking in the photo below, curled up in my hands but really eyeing the exits at the Musee d’Orsay and planning a break for freedom:
Yes, the bottom half of Sarah Hatton’s Vilma sweater is now swanning around Paris, flaunting her sleek Finest fibers without my grubby hands on her any more. But I have a plan. Vilma's sleeves are at home, and with a little ingenuity and luck, I can knit a fair-isle body that will compensate for my 3 lost balls of yarn. Vilma is gone, but Nicole, as I will name the ingenious creation I may someday cobble together with scraps of yarn, may live on.
Sarah Hatton’s Vilma sweater
https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/vilma-5
As I struggled to deal with Vilma’s flight in a late-night cab, I consoled myself with a visit to La Bien Aimee. It truly is a paradise of hand-dyed yarn near La Place d’Italie. The store awning and bags are hued bright yellow to commemorate Aimee’s signature Yellow Brick Road color:
And I did buy a skein of the yellow for a future shawl on LBA's merino sportsweight base. The colors from left to right are Yellow Brick Road, Jonna, and Hegelia.
I could not resist buying some sock yarn at La Bien Aimee since the last pair I knitted in the BFL sock base turned out so well:
These are Kate Atheley’s Jarvis socks, which I finished recently and really adore. I wanted some light-colored speckled yarn, which was available in 2 minis, and then I also picked up a great skein of purple speckled grey on BFL touch sock.
1 skein Andromeda, 2 small skeins of Blush + Yellow Brick Road mini skein
My father decided to pitch in for my upcoming Christmas present, so as a bonus, I walked away with two really gorgeous colors: The LBA sportweight merino in the vintage colorway, plus a skein of the yarn LBA only sells at their shop. Allure, in dark purple. The allure is a 70% alpaca, 20% silk, 10% cashmere base and the colorway is “The Flying Knitter”, which is the name of a yarn boutique in a different part of Paris.
My German cousin-in-law, Annette, had taken the train over to see me and my husband here for a few days, so as she’s a knitter, we were able to spend a lovely "crafternoon" together:
We also attended the knit night at L’oisivethé on Wednesday, where we had a lovely meal and knit with a welcoming group. The menu was simple, with soft-boiled eggs and toast “soldiers” and a wonderful pot of tea for me:
Annette and I sat at a table with several accomplished French women as well as a Portuguese gal who was fluent in English and French as well as her native language. It was a really lovely evening, and by some weird coincidence we all seemed to be knitting with the same colored yarn!
Well, I’m off to search the internet for ideas on a colorwork panel I can insert into my Wilma turned Nicole sweater, now that I’ve lost 3 balls of the long-discontinued yarn that makes up the body of the sweater, above. Keep your eyes on your knitting, readers. You never know when it may be getting ideas of it's own....