Knitting in Istanbul

On July 15, 2007, in KAL, lace, MS3, socks, stole, by Anna

I’ve just returned from a wonderful trip to Istanbul. We’ve spent a week sightseeing, eating and shopping. Of course I was looking for both knitting needles and yarn. No luck on the yarn – the only store I found sold only acrylic yarn. I did find another store which claimed it sold silk yarn. However, upon inspection the silk turned out to be very polyester (plastic) string. I suppose that if you can’t tell the difference between silk yarn and polyester string you deserve what you get…..

Finding knitting needles in the maze of the bazaars in Istanbul turned out to be quite a challenge. I was directed to one store, but it turned out to be a wholesaler only. I guess I could have gotten quite a deal on a set of 50 identical needles, but I’m not sure what I would do with them.

Upon leaving the wholesaler, we did find another store that actually sold them separately. For 4 YTL (approx $3.20 CDN) I got one set of straight needles, one set of dpns and a bonus thimble.

I also acquired a pair of scissors to replace the ones in my knitting bag. The new ones (left) are actually sharp – quite a change from the kid scissors (right) I had before…. a relic from when I was in 3rd grade.

I managed to get some knitting done. Mostly on the plane and in the airports, but also on the ferry rides we took up the Bosphoros to the Black Sea (left), and to Heybeliada and Büyükada the Sea of Marmara. While I don’t have finished objects to show off, I was working on a pair of socks and the Mystery Stole.