I’m a knitter. I learned to knit at my mother’s knee and over the years there have been times when I’ve done a lot and others when I haven’t done much at all.

A couple of years ago, I idly consulted Google to ask if there was a yarn shop near me in Buenos Aires, and was amazed to find there wasn’t just a yarn shop but a yarn district! Actually it’s a small row of shops, probably about eight of them, side by side on a street called Scalabrini Ortiz, and it’s just a short bus ride away from me.

I didn’t have the wit to take a photo of the shops from the outside, but here are some shots of their interiors I found online:

Ever since that first time, I usually pay it a visit and come away with some nice yarn to work with while I’m here. This year was no exception. I bought this lovely, soft Peruvian cotton in a happy apple green colour, and am knitting a lacy top.

Choosing yarn here can be fun or challenging, or both. That’s because for the most part it doesn’t sit on the shelves in nice neat balls with labels that tell you how many stitches you get to an inch. No, mainly you buy it by weight. So I had a pattern I got on the Internet and it called for 5 balls of a particular type of brand name yarn. I had to estimate how much of my apple green cotton to buy! In the end, I bought half a kilo and it looks as if it will be enough. If not it will just have to have shorter sleeves because I’m not buying another half kilo to make up a shortage!

Maybe I’ll post a photo of the finished top.