Sunday, July 09, 2006

Wool for English Garden bag & Online shopping...

Have you ever tried to shop online for wool and anticipate spending only an hour or so max doing this? Obviously I should have known better as I ended up spending nearly 5 hours on line yesterday afternoon. The final blow came just as I submitted my order to Kangaroo. BAM! I couldn't complete the transaction and process the payment. AAAARRRGGHH.

I had tried to log onto hotmail & ebay earlier in the day but I couldn't. It never occured to me that there was something wrong with the settings on the laptop and it was preventing me from logging onto secure websites. Finally it dawned on me when I tried to submit my wool order - it only took me 1/2 a day to figure this out. Doh!

Never have I been so grateful to see the house PC up and running again (I take back what I said earlier this week). Lady PC allowed me to access the website and I was able to reinput the order. Thankfully everything went smoothly. Now all we need is for the wool to be in stock and promptly delivered, and I shall be one very happy little bunny!

On to the yarn substitutions:- As I am unable to get the CPY yarns specified in the pattern (CPY Taos and CPY Aran), I decided to get some Noro Kureyon to replace the Taos and some Debbie Bliss Merino Aran to replace the CPY Aran. I had wanted to go for a similar colour scheme as CPY's but I had trouble finding similar colours.

So I compromised and chose Noro Kureyon shade 159, and Debbie Bliss Merino Aran in the following shades: (203) Teal, (602) Pink, (506) Forest Green and (600) Pale Pink. I also have about 400yds of Lilac wool and turquoise wool in my stash to balance it out. FYI, the Debbie Bliss Aran was £2.95 but I also got some for £2.25 in the specials.

In all I spent £28.40, which for me is a lot of money to spend on one project. But I figure the English Garden bag by Crystal Palace Yarns is going to be worth it! This bag is intended to be a birthday present for someone but I'm afraid it could be difficult to part with. We'll have to see how it goes....

All being well, I should be the proud owner of my first stash of Noro Kureyon and some Debbie Bliss Merino Aran by Wednesday next week.

PS: Kangaroo have free postage for yarn within the UK. Yay me!

2 comments:

Piglottie said...

I love the bag and the person who is getting it as a gift is very, very lucky. I'm sure you'll love the kureyon. A couple of little tips from when I used it; 1) I put it through the wash twice on 60 to get a well felted look (but I know all washing machines are different), and 2) I shaved my bag (sounds bizarre!) to get rid of all the fluffy bits and the colours brightened up even more. HTH.

Craftybernie said...

I've just recently started shaving my felted bags - something I spotted on KR. Although they aren't terribly fuzzy. But I will keep it in mind for this project - i don't know what to expect as I have never worked with Noro or Debbie Bliss. I can't wait......