My husband went to Canada…

…and came back with some slightly confusing yarn.

I’d asked Paul not to bring me any chocolate home from his business trip (having recently received a mountain of very fine choccies for my birthday) and suggested that yarn would be an appropriate substitute.

As everybody* knows, souvenir yarn doesn’t count towards your stash, so it’s an excellent gift. But in order to make a good souvenir, it should ideally be something that you can’t just walk into a yarn shop and buy locally. So I sent Paul yarn shopping in Canada, with these criteria in mind, plus a couple of Canadian brand names in case of emergency.

So, you may be wondering why the yarn in the top picture is very clearly labelled “Zealana” and “Kiwi”. Apparently New Zealand’s in Canada now. Perhaps the lady in the Ottowa yarn shop, who sold this to my poor unsuspecting husband after he’d explained that he wanted specifically Canadian yarn, is in need of a little geography lesson.

But, it is a yarn I’ve never seen locally, it’s super-soft, and it has the exciting new-to-me ingredient of possum, so it definitely works as an excellent souvenir!

Bless him, once Paul had realised that the first yarn was definitely not Canadian, he went yarn shopping again!

This, which is done absolutely no justice by the photo (the purple yarn is much more of an aubergine colour), is the softest yarn on earth. This is by no means an exaggeration, I spent a good half hour last night just stroking it. It’s Illimani Royal 1, and it’s made IN CANADA, from the finest 1% of the fleece from Bolivian alpaca. The colours above are hot pink (of course!) and eggplant.

Softest. Yarn. Ever.

It’s crying out to be some kind of scarf or cowl I think, so I can snuggle my face into it as often as possible. Or I might just leave it sitting on the arm of the sofa, so I can stroke it like a soft little pet. (What? The knitters know what I mean.)

I don’t know yet what I’ll make with the Zealana. I was thinking originally of socks, but the cotton content (organic cotton, no less!) gives it such a nice drape, I’m thinking that maybe a little lacy shawl might be in order.

I do need to catch up with a few knitting photos though, as I have managed to find the time to actually finish a few things lately! This is good, as all the things I’ve finished are intended to be Christmas gifts. This has the added bonus of getting some of the yarn out of my house and into other people’s, which I’m sure Paul will be really pleased about!

* By “everybody” I clearly mean “knitters who are looking to acquire more yarn without the attendant guilt of purchasing it for themselves when they already have a cupboard full at home”. By which I mean all of them.