Near yarn disaster ends happily

I went to Knitter's Mercantile last night, which is a new store which bought out Wolfe Fiber Arts' inventory to try to see if they by any chance had any more Lana Grossa Binario left. I had bought 4 balls there 2 weeks prior to WFA's closing but it seems the yarn requirements are off on Bad Penny, because I finished those 4 balls with about 4" to go. And my gauge was dead on, so I'm not sure what was up with that. I'd spent several hours emailing yarn shops all over the country Monday night trying to find someone who had it in stock with no luck at all.

So, KM was really my last resort. I drove up after work to check it out, and it's really a great shop--lots of space, a table in the back, couches in the front. The biggest thing I noticed about the space is that they had yarns with WFA stickers on them still that I never knew Wolfe carried because of how things were crammed into their space.

I asked one of the women if they had the Binario, and admitted I thought it was a long shot. One of the women working there and I dug through two big boxes from the Wolfe clearance shelf that hadn't been unpacked yet, to no avail. They said they could order it, or sound the alarm with other yarn shops, but I said I had one more avenue to try yet.

I looked around the rest of the store and picked up a few things (some Rowan Summer Tweed, and a Japanese laceweight scarf yarn to go with some handspun laceweight I have) when I heard someone come out of the back and say "Where is she? Did she leave?" Next thing I knew, she was walking around the corner with FOUR WHOLE BOXES of Binario. One whole box was color 17, which was what I needed. Hooray!

Not only did they have the yarn, they had it in the same dyelot I'd been using!!! They must have thought I was nuts, the way I was celebrating. But I love the way Bad Penny is knitting up, and the prospect of starting it over with a different yarn was not making me happy.

If anyone else wants to make Bad Penny, they have enough for four or five more people to do it. They had white, light blue, and beige and I think the fourth color was beige/white, but it could have been red--I don't recall. I didn't see any Rotonda, which is what the trim uses, but that's a lot easier yarn to substitute--a lot of Vittadini yarns are similar (in fact, I bought Rotonda to substitute for a Vittadini yarn in a project last year) and Lana Grossa makes another yarn called "Cable" which looks to be similar, just shinier.

I think I could have photos of a finished Bad Penny by this weekend. I didn't work on it too much last night because I had an afghan square to finish up. But I have SNB tonight, so I can handle a couple hours of mindless stockinette. Two weeks for a project isn't bad at all!