I'll sail her up the west coast...

Readers, I have taken a little pause from blogging to travel up the west coast of Scotland, and across the highlands to Inverness, over the past week or so. Here is a little summary-in-yarn of the trip:

Our first stop was the historic mill town of Paisley, home of Paisley Shawls, and the Coats/Patons crafting empire, just outside of Glasgow:

This is the now defunct Anchor Mill - the last mill closed in the early 1990s, but you can see the largest exhibition of 19th century Paisley shawls in the world in Paisley Museum's Shawl Gallery - exquisitely beautiful, but of course I couldn't take photographs due to the delicate nature of the silks and wools used to make them. Despite the closure of the mills, there is still one weaver left in Paisley (Whitehill and Wilsons), and I purchased one of their wool shawls from the museum shop, and am wearing it in this rather poor photograph, taken in a hurry just before we braved the rain and went out for dinner.

I also finished an object in Paisley - the Sand and Sea Shawlette from Coastal Knits, made from the two skeins of sock yarn I bought in Helsinki in February:

It doesn't really go with the striped tee, but here is a pic from the back:

I am really pleased with how this turned out - the colour combination looks just like waves on a shingle beach.

We left Paisley for the west coast, and were busy cycling, sightseeing, and swimming there so I didn't progress that much on my other WIPs. But in the beautiful town of Oban:

I made a little purchase of a skein of pure, undyed wool from an Isle of Mull sheep grower, spinner and weaver (Ardalanish), being sold in a local handicrafts store. In a soft brown shade, it is very likely to become a hat for the husband. There was another store selling yarn in Oban, but when I tried to visit (at 11.40am) it hadn't yet opened. Time was getting on and we couldn't wait, so it went unvisited.

Passing up along the west coast, we briefly stopped in the town of Gourock, where we swam in the (heated) open air pool and I spied this yarn shop:

They sell spinning supplies and run spinning courses as well as knitting, and I lingered for a while at their lovely window display:

Shortly after, we left the west coast for Inverness, where I was again the victim of Scotland's eccentric opening hours, as the main yarn shop In the Victoria Arcade there decided to close early yesterday. However, I popped into the craft store nearby and bought two metres of pretty tartan ribbon, possibly to use on the Apple Strudel Cardigan, which I worked on in the car all the way home.