Yarn in Italy

The Harry Potter scarf I made during
 my Sophomore year of college.

If you've never moved your entire life to another country you might not have any idea what you acutally need to pack, and this is the problem I ran into when we moved here to Saudi Arabia.  There were obvious things we needed to pack like clothes, toiletries, and a few sentimental items, but for other items we had no idea what to bring.  The biggest mistake I made while packing was not bringing enough hobby materials with me.  We bought two of Amazon's fantastic Kindle (although we had to get the older 2nd generation instead of the newest ones) so that we didn't have the extra weight from a lot of books, but I didn't bring any knitting needles or yarn.

When I was packing, I was trying to be realistic and honest about how much free time I would have and had this been anything like undergrad, I wouldn't have had much time for crafts and fun, but that ended up being wrong.

The grocery store on campus has a few balls of yarn, but no knitting needles, and I haven't been able to find a store in Jeddah that has craft supplies.

Our trip to Italy should be able to rectify this though!  I found a couple of posts about yarn shops in both Milan and Florence and with the addresses of about eight different stores I certainly should be able to find at least one of them.  I'm hoping to get at least one set of needles, size 8 preferably as they are my favorite size, and maybe 4-6 balls of yarn depending on the price.

After browsing around Ravelry (a great pattern/yarn/advice search for knitting and crochet), I'm still captivated by the idea of knitting a pageboy cap.  But since that would require knitting in the round, I'll need to stick with something a bit simpler.  I also loved waffle stitch afghan, but it's knitted on a loom, so that won't work either.  I think I'll try have to keep searching for the right project to make with any new found supplies.

I still love these mittens I made during a summer camping trip with my mom after my freshman year of college.  They're a bit more worn now, but ready and waiting for me when I get home.