My kind of souvenir

Did you know that 'souvenir' is the French verb 'to remember'? Makes total sense, right?

I have to admit, for awhile I bought coffee cups, and I still try to get a magnet for our fridge for each city I visit, but my favorite souvenirs of all are things we use all the time--shoes, a hairbrush, small bags for projects, fabric, yarn.
These are little reminders are where we've been (and will hopefully go again).

Some of my treasures will remain a mystery for now since they may end up as part of my challenge entries for this year's Threads/ASDP Challenge, "Rethinking the Power Suit".

Here are some treasures I can share:

I've been making cotton dish/wash cloths for awhile now--they are great projects when you don't or can't pay close attention, and want to get something done quickly. (I just finished a sweater, so these are nice for a change).
I found these great colorways at Cat' Laine in Paris.



One of the problems with buying yarn when traveling is that if you buy enough for a sweater, it gets bulky really fast. So I bought sock yarn instead.
On the far left is a cotton/lyocell from Phildar (not sock yarn)--I've already knitted up one dishcloth with it, and we love it.
The next 2 are sock yarns from I Knit London--the owner hand-dyed these. The brand is "I Knit or Dye" and the colorways are "A Different Class" (the blue--100% superwash bluefaced Leicester wool) and "Ziggy Stardust" (the rust--Superwash merino/nylon/stellina(metallic)(
On the far right is another sock yarn which I bought at L'Oisive Thé in Paris. The brand is Socktopus (from UK0 and the color is "Tea & Monkeys"

Finally, I picked up some basic cotton yarn to practice crochet. I found these at a stall at the fabulous market at Bastille on our last Sunday in Paris, which we spent with our good friends, Joerg, Megan and Sophie who drove from Cologne to hang with us in Paris for a couple of days.