I thought I’d post a few more photos from my trip to San Francisco.  This was my favorite photo from a flower shop on the way back from visiting ImagiKnits which is in an area called The Castro, an older neighborhood that feels like a college town.  As I was strolling through the neighborhood I noticed many people working on their laptops while looking through their bay windows overlooking the street, telecommuters from Silicon Valley perhaps?  This is where we found our wonderful pastries (below) from Urban Bakery, right across the street from ImagiKnits.  On the way back we saw this wonderful florist.  I’d love to live in a neighborhood where I could walk home every day to these lovely flowers and pastries!

At ImagiKnits I had the chance to see all the colors for Debbie Bliss’ baby cashmarino at their shop and picked up a few skeins to make my first Fair Isle hat for the plane ride home.  Yay.  I honestly did not know if the size was going to be large enough because it was looking really small but I carried on like a trooper, with absolute blind faith, and this morning when I finished the crown and tried it on, it fit!  The pattern came from Debbie Bliss Family Knits.  I picked up a copy of the book in San Francisco at Borders, and had fun thumbing throgh the copy while we sat in their coffee shop overlooking downtown (very quite and peaceful!).  The original sample had lots more colors but I thought it was super expensive buying all those colors and needing only a little bit from each so I settled on three colors, Norwegian style for my first try.  I also really wanted to give this yarn a test run for two color knitting and liked how it performed.  The baby cashmarino has a wonderful luxurious feel next to the skin.  I was wondering what type of needle to use and hadn’t brought any with me.  I discovered Addi Natura circulars when I found my yarn so I thought I’d give those a try too, and wow, they were very, very nice, what a treat it was to feel the yarn glide through my fingers, and slip so smoothly off the needles, lots of fun!  I think it took about 4 hours to make the hat from beginning to end so I can highly recommend it as a great gift/week-end project.  My copy of “Hats On” by Charlene Schurch was waiting for me on my doorstep when I returned home and I can’t say enough good things about it, filled with lots and lots of Fair Isle and Norwegian hats.  Here is a photo of my favorite one.  Many of the patterns call for a heavier weight yarn and larger needles so they would knit up even faster if you are in a hurry to get some gifts made for the holidays.  Hats are a nice little project to work on when a.) you are really tired, b.) you don’t have much time, c.) you are on a budget, and d.) its really cold outside and have some plans to play outdoors.  The only drawback to the beanie is that, well, it looks a bit like a bathing cap, not the most flattering style for me, but when its cold, I just want to be warm and comfortable. 

If you are new to Fair Isle knitting, this is a great way to practice two color/stranded knitting, on a small project like this.  At ImagiKnits I also found a copy of Dale of Norway’s Quick and Easy Accessories NR 8303, which has a beautiful felted purse made out of Heilo with a sweet little argyle patterned band through the middle that was really precious, in gray, pink and white.  It would also make a great little project for learning how to knit in two colors.