Getting hold of wool in London is a bit of a nightmare. Finding shops locally is almost impossible (I’ve been on 2 pilgrimages to local wool shops in recent months that turned out not to be there anymore) and so you’re forced to trudge up into central London to John Lewis where the wool is of the strictly upper middle class variety and entirely unconcerned for budgets.

So I’ve been building up quite a selection of online wool shops recently, (which I will add to the sidebar in due course). They have the benefit of not obliging you to get off your backside for longer than it takes to answer the door to the postie, but the downside is that you can’t actually feel the stuff – or see it properly in a lot of cases. Still, seeing this lovely Rowan yarn (which I’m already familiar with from previous John Lewis wool groping sessions) on sale for £20 for 10 balls, I couldn’t help but click the Buy button.

I’m hoping this will work for the Slouchy Shrug pattern I’ve been staring at longingly for the past few weeks. Problem is, I can’t find wool that will match the guage, since Moda Dea wool isn’t available in the UK. I haven’t tried this new Rowan stuff yet, but fingers crossed. If not, I’ll have to fudge it using the excellent Shrug Schematics on the Crochetville forum. I’m sure I’ll get there eventually!