would you look at that

I really wanted to bring some rare foreign yarn home with me from Helsinki, preferably Finnish. As it turned out, I had no luck finding Finnish yarn. They don't keep a lot of sheep over there and only spin a tiny bit of wool which is hard to find for sale. My friend who used to live in Turku told me about this little yarn shop near the Kaampi shopping mall in the center of Helsinki, Fiinaneule, a lovely little shop indeed and the shop owner was so helpful. She completely understood my yarn hunting mission and had even been in Iceland a few months earlier, going from yarn shop to yarn shop with the same in mind! 

Fiinaneule mostly had Rowan and some other rather common brands (all very nice) which I bought a few skeins of. But the best part was this exquisite Indian silk which they buy directly from a Finnish woman who lives in India and gets is by fair trade directly from local silk farmers. Oh, yes. I have never, ever, worked with such a quality fiber before. Never. Ever. It is simply wonderfully soft and the color is perfect. It's not quite as finely spun as silk so often is, more like DK weight, not quite fingering weight. I bought this one skein to make a toddler silk cap for Ósk now that she's outgrown all her baby silk caps. But I might have to buy some more, this stuff is seriously drug-like. Luckily I have tracked it down on Etsy as "Gorgeous silk yarn by Craftamma" so my addiction can be easily fed. 

I am using a pattern called Junie Cap which I found by using the advanced search in the Ravelry pattern database depending mostly on the fiber weight and quality. I am about halfway done and looking forward to trying the earflaps with the short rows, it might be a disaster since silk can be so unforgiving with such knitting maneuvers. If it turns out really bad I'll just make something up. 

Linking up with Frontier Dreams - are you crafting along as well?