Italian Wool

Good Morning,
Here's a nice little story :)
It all started with a bag of coned wool that a good friend brought over one day saying  that she'd found it at a local  fabric wholesaler . She knew of my constant search for coned wool ( for my knitting machine) and just bought the bag for me, tres cool!

This was my first taste of merino wool,  delicate and sensitive until it was washed and dried turning into this gorgeous combination of lace and warmth without the scratch.

                                Dale Darlington Photo Candice Jones model
Needless to say I bought up the remaining cones and made every colour that I could find enjoying the fact that each piece turned out differently depending on the stitch tension , water temperature etc etc!
 I've tried a couple of different yarn wholesalers but I havn't found that same fine merino that turns into lace : that's  just how it goes sometimes which I guess is why each piece is so special, there might never be another one .
 A few weeks back  our good friends off on their 15th Anniversary travels to Italy kindly offered to search for more of this merino which turned out to originate in an Italian town called Carpi .

                                           Matt and Meghan photo's
Armed with a cone  and google translate they set off on their "Isabelle Dunlop Clothing" buying mission (the town was an hour away from their holiday location so they even hired a car!!)
Now we are all expecting a nice romantic concept of this wool store that Matt has managed to research  but on arrival they are in deep Italian Industrial land , yes I think we have All seen Industrial land in many parts of the world and they all look the same.

It's almost give up and go home time.. so Matt gets out asks some locals about yarn "Filati" that leads to another door and another man who might know of such a thing.  Eventually they arrive at a door and upon opening it's revealed a whole warehouse of coned wool! Jackpot  !!!

  Matt quickly runs back to the car to get Meghan and the piece of paper with his story of me and my designs and my love of wool all translated into Italian. They hand the note to a lady who upon reading it simply says "Si" and smiles.

After careful deliberation they brought a bunch of my favourite colours to try out and now I am in the process of making my first order! So cool to make such a lovely connection and realise how wonderful your friends are!
I should have everything ready for Christmas ,
Cheers
Isabelle