PayDay - yet again!

Well, I woke up yesterday morning to find that the sun was shining in Toronto!


An auspicious start indeed to my PayDay celebration (deferred one day - I have such steely willpower, eh?).

So, off I headed into the winter chill:


...but with my soul warmed by the prospect of new exciting acquisitions (although that "steely resolve" look on my face belies this, I know).

First stop over the lunch hour - the big bad conglomerate bookshop which shall remain nameless. I try to avoid these places, but I had a $75 gift certificate left over Christmas.

So, that added up to quite a bit of light reading:

Obviously I'm in need of a bit of cheering up, having bought books by three comedians! And what's that? you ask - another mosaic book??? I know, I know - I don't really need another mosaic book. And in fact I was just about to put it down and walk away when I saw this pattern:

Stan and Ollie! My favourites! They're the ones who have inspired me to think about going back to school, by the way:

Obviously, they have been huge role models for me:

(I wish I could show you the whole photo as it has far more comic value than just me alone. However, my good friend "Kenndra" - ahem - would kill me.)

So, this book was a must-have: and only $12.00! Other lovely patterns in the book:

And how about this "flower power" one?!?

Then at the smoke shop, I came across these:

Mozzarella snack sticks in a bag?! These ones will stay at the office for that 3:00 sugar drop time. Move over, jellybeans!!

I then went on a quest to the LYS to find yarn for the Secret of the Stole II knitalong. I was in search of 1,400 metres of laceweight yarn. Being the Handmaiden slut that I am, I thought I would have a problem finding that quantity in one colour (the shops tend to carry only a couple of skeins of various colours - probably because only insane people like myself would spend $120.00 on the yarn needed for such a large stole).

So, imagine my surprise to find that there are laceweight yarns other than Handmaiden! I came away with this Malabrigo merino in a lovely midnight blue shade:

And only $11.95 a skein! A far cry from the $40.00/skein for the equivalent amount in Handmaiden lace silk!

Which did not, of course, stop me from snapping up some of that as well:

This even though there was not enough for the stole competition. However, I've just upped my Handmaiden stash to almost seven kilometres. Sigh.

Incidentally, I took the photos of the yarn while waiting for the streetcar at Queen and Bathurst with about 50 other people. I did get some very odd looks. Hey, at least I wasn't wasting my time grumbling "Where the #$&*$(@&#$(* is that tram? The service on Bathurst these days is $#&*@$(@* ridiculous!".

Having said that, one indicator of the ridiculousness of the tram service on Bathurst is that I managed to knit this much while waiting:

Er - not quite. But, close enough to be depressing. And this at rush hour!

So, off to work now to pay for the Handmaiden stash - at this rate, I'll have to rent another apartment for it!

Cheers,

Kristina