2012.05.18 Black Bart Iris |
I have been participating in the 21 shops in 4 days madness called the 2012 Puget Sound LYS Tour.
Day 1
Yesterday, I got home at about 9 pm and seriously, I was exhausted. We only hit 4 stores. But I was dead.
Well, I went to 5 stores because I snuck off to Serial Knitters in Kirkland Washington by myself first, right when it opened.
It's a wonderful shop, although it seems small, it has a terrific selection.
They are currently having an Abstract Fiber Trunk Show, and wow those yarns are yummy.
What's best about it is, this is my most "local" of LYS's and it is really great to be able to see the yarn in real life. And touch it!
Allifer came over at about 2:30 pm and we headed across Lake Washington to meet up with GwenS.
Our first stop was So Much Yarn in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood, near the Pike Place Market.
I am writing this with the help of GwenS who took great notes. (I was the driver). So Much Yarn is upstairs and the space is small, but they have it packed with some wonderful yarns. At every shop I asked the owners if they had anything that was unique to their shop. Not every shop had an answer to that, but So Much Yarn did. They carry a line of alpaca sock yarns from a local farm. The yarns are all undyed, in the natural colors of the alpacas, some are blended, and they are named for each alpaca. I had to buy a skein, knowing that I would be able to use it during the Solid Socks Challenge for Brown next year. They had a great mix of yarns at various prices, so you could find something really special, and still afford it.
Our second stop was The Knittery in Renton.
This is a well lit, open space, with a large selection of general workhorse yarns.
Our third stop was the Yarn Stash in Burien.
One of the fun things about the tour is that every shop has 2 featured patterns, and the yarn (the pattern can use 1 or 2 skeins) for the pattern on sale for 10% off. Most of the patterns have been specially created for the Tour. The pattern at the Yarn Stash this year is a pair of fingerless mitts, and is really nice. It can be done with color work, or using texture instead of the 2nd color. It was one of our favorite patterns.
The final stop for yesterday, was Seattle Yarn in West Seattle.
This shop was a delightful surprise. It was much larger than expected, and had a really nice selection of both brands and prices.
A few of the stores had this sign in the window, Seattle Yarn did, and it was important to us because we had Allifer and Ellyol with us, both primarily crocheters (as well as me).
They had a huge button selection.
Gwen was particularly happy with their selection of Malabrigo and Madelinetosh.
I will try to get photos of today's excursion up tomorrow, etc. But we are going to hit the northern most shops on the Tour, and it will be an absolutely crazy day. I hope I have enough energy to blog.
Good night. Stay safe and well.
Yours,
f1bercat
shaping the planet one growing yarn stash at a time!
I love the 'crochet friendly' signs! if only more LYSs were able to claim that :)
ReplyDeleteEvery store had a free pattern with a featured yarn, and about half of the stores had 2 patterns, 1 knit, and 1 crochet. Since half of the group in my car were crocheters, we really appreciated the crochet focus. =)
Delete