Fiber Friday with Prizes

Hello!

The Fiber Friday group from Eastside Stitchers met today at Crossroads for some yarny fun, because we just don't see each other enough.

BlueBerryMary is almost finished with her baby blanket.

I just love how the lavender border picks up the lavender flecks in the yarn.

CathieC was weaving in the 1000000000000000000000000 bits of yarn on her beautiful knitted afghan.  This is a great project for social knitting, because chatting while you weave helps with the potential bordeom.

WireKnitter was working on a new colorwork shawl.  I realized that I am often very lazy during Fiber Fridays and I don't seem to take many notes, so of course I have no idea what the name of this shawl is.

Winterpromise31 has begun a new hat.

And begun it again, and again.  Then bought some new smaller needles with a smaller cable and begun it again.  Sometimes knitting just doesn't want to work.

Skeinherder was working on something very mysterious.  And drinking tea.

VanesaPolo arrived later, as there is something about Yoga in her Friday morning schedule these days.  And of course, I didn't take a photo of her knitting.  Isn't that just like me?

I was working on Round 5 Sock Madness, Zip.

I was preparing the zippers so I can knit them into the legs of the socks.  So far I have finished both cuffs, and am done with one zipper prep.

After Fiber Friday, I drove over to Tea Cozy Yarns in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle.  I had won one of the daily drawings during the 2013 North Puget Sound LYS Tour, and I needed to pick up my prize.  I had no idea what it was. 

YAYAYAYAY!  I am so so happy with what I got.  Of course, anything free and a prize is always great, but this had some stuff that I was planning on buying! so it was just a perfect prize for me.

First of all, I got an official LYS Tour bag.  (hahahaha, no that wasn't one of the things I had planned to buy, but another knit bag always comes in handy.)

Then I looked inside my new bag, and there was Extreme Double-Knitting: new adventures in reversible colorwork by Alasdair Post-Quinn.  I heard the author/designer interviewed a while ago on some podcast (not sure which one, sorry), and was totally intrigued.  As I haven't really done any regular colorwork, I was hesitant to try reversible colorwork, but still, I love learning new techniques, and I wanted to check out his book for future projects.  Now I OWN  it.  This was my biggest squeee.

I also received the new issue of Knitter's Magazine, with a free 1 year subscription!

On top of that, was a skein of Eweneek Exquisite, 50% Merino 50% Silk laceweight yarn from Knot Just Yarn, who also was a part of the 2013 LYS Tour.  The color is Tidepool, and I just love it.  That shop was the site of one of my few (this year) impulse buys on the tour.  I bought a skein of their sock yarn (of course!) in a beautiful green.

The last part of my major award was a bottle of Crafters Cream. from Apple Yarns.  It feels lovely on my work roughened hands.

Lucky me!

Ok, I am leaving really early tomorrow morning to fly down to California to help out at my brother's house for a week.  My sister-in-law has to do another 11 days of military ... something... somewhere.  These are always tough, as my brother can't be left alone anymore, and of course, someone has to be there to help out with the kids.  There is a great network of neighbors, friends and family, who take turns when the family needs help, but it is just too hard to cover that many nights.  I am lucky that the Doc, Himes, and Pookie, can handle themselves without me for a week.

I will really try to post regularly.  After all, I am working on Sock Madness, and tomorrow Tour de Sock Begins!  As well, as a new month of HPKCHC classes.  The internet at my brother's house is horribly slow, but I will do my best to get something up regularly.

I should be able to knit more than I usually do because I won't be working, just being THERE for the family, and doing regular "mom" stuff.  My brother and sisters (and nephews and nieces for that matter) don't always understand the importance of  an "International Sock Knitting Competition Based on March Madness,"  and I am not sure that I can explain Tour de Sock and even worse Harry Potter Knitting Crochet House Cup to such non-stitching Muggles.  But, they have become accustomed to seeing me with some type of fiber in my hands at all times.

I am the aunt/sister who... KNITS.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with a new knitting book that is a PRIZE!

The Northwest LYS Tour Day 1

It's May, and that means YARN!

Today was the first day of the 4 day Northwest LYS Tour 2013.  My stitch buddies, Eastside Stitchers, and I will be hitting all 24, count them 24 shops on the tour in 4 days.

Today, alas, I did the first day of the tour all alone, and lonely (not really, I'll explain), because, the main group is doing the Thursday and Friday days after work, so our working members can participate, and I had a prior engagement tonight.

The Fiber Gallery
8212 Greenwood Avenue North, Seattle, WA 98103
206-706-4197

I headed out to The Fiber Gallery first.  They were the farthest from my house, and I figured that I would start way out, and work my way back home.

This shop has parking behind it, just off N 83rd St. All of the shops today had very friendly and helpful people.  This was very evident at The Fiber Gallery.  They are known for carrying natural fibers, and eco-friendly yarns.

They also have the biggest supply of Hazel Knits in the area.  I was impressed by their wall of Malabrigo.  I loved all of the "sock" yarns they had in stock, though, most are what I would call fingering weight not sock, as they did not have nylon in them.

I can't post photos of any of the special patterns that are free to people on the crawl, but I loved every one of them today.  I really liked both the knit and crochet pattern at Fiber Gallery, and hope to make both.

I was not totally lonely, though I was here alone, because I had to text Skeinherder for some info on a pattern on Ravelry.  One of the yarns that was for sale here was a Cascade Eco.  I bought a skein to use in the SavvyGirls CAL (crochet a long), and I needed the yardage.  Thank goodness, Skeinherder was home and could look it up for me.  I don't have a smart phone, just a dumb one, so I needed help.  It's nice to have knit buddies.

Have you only seen Habu at fiber conventions and events?  They carry it at The Fiber Gallery.

The Tea Cozy Yarn Shop
5816 24th Ave NW Seattle, Wa 98107
206-783-3322

The Tea Cozy Yarn Shop is in  Seattle's Ballard neighborhood.

There is only street parking, and a warning for tomorrow evening, Friday, May 17, 4 - 8pm, there will be no parking on the street right in front of the shop.  May 17 is Norwegian Independence Day, so of course there will be a parade in Ballard.  It should be a really fun event, but, parking will be limited during the festivities on Friday.

The motto for this shop is "basics and beyond." 

They have some very nice "beyond." 
Lately, they are very into Euroflax and have a wonderful selection.

They also have embroidery threads.

They have begun to carry yarns from Abstract Fiber of Portland, OR.  And have a large selection.

Loved their yarn crawl featured patterns, and had to forcibly stop myself from buying yarn for it.  I'm sure I have suitable yarn at home.

Bad Woman Yarn
815 N 45th St, Suite 215, Seattle, WA 98103
206-547-5384

This shop is in the Wallingford Center, which has over 17 local and regional based retail boutiques.  There is plenty of parking for the center.

Bad Woman Yarn is down the hall to the left after you enter.  There was a table set up in the hall for people to sit and knit.

I

I arrived close to noon, and the Crawl was in full swing.  The shop was crowded.

This shop is packed.  Packed with very wonderful yarn, not just people!  They had the biggest selection of Madelinetosh I have seen yet.

They also had tons of Berroco.

Again, the "sock" section was interesting.  I wish yarn companies would not call fingering weight yarn "sock" yarn if it does not have at least 10% nylon content.  Call it "fingering" weight, for goodness sake.  That being said, Bad Woman Yarn had some beautiful fingering weight yarns.  And they were open about the types of fingering they featured.

I recommend timing your visit to Bad Woman yarn when you are hungry, as 2 of the restaurants in the Wallingford Center are offering discounts to people on the Crawl, and Trophy Cupcakes and Party

 is offering 10% off to anyone with an LYS passport.

Go on, you deserve a bit of cake by this time.

As I came out of Bad Woman, I found two of my knit buddies going in.  Chockelet and MsWiz were getting an early start (for our Eastside Stitchers) on the tour.  I knew they were out and about.  Still, we could have passed each other on the road.  We could have taken circular paths.  We could have never seen each other.  But we did.  It was so fun, and well, heart-warming, to see familiar faces.  We stopped to chat, exclaim about the yarn selections available at the participating shops, and admit our purchases.  I hope you run into familiar faces on your crawl.

Acorn Street Yarn
2818 NE 55th St, Seattle, WA 98105
206-525-1726

Acorn Street Yarn is tucked away in the U district.  I loved the "neighborhood-ness" of the street.  There is only street parking, and since it was a bit crowded with yarn shoppers, I parked down a block on a side street.

This is not a bit shop, but every inch is packed with yarn.  They pride themselves on having a really really good selection.  They have been in business for 30 years, and they know their yarn.

There are shelves and shelves full of yummy yarns.  I saw a lot of brands that I didn't know.  The owner was so friendly and helpful.  She kept running back and forth, as more and more entered the shop for the crawl, to answer my questions about her shop.

They had a really nice fingering selection, and a real sock yarn selection.  They had a huge selection of Cascade Heritage Sock.  This yarn is very often my go to yarn for knitting socks.

I will be back.

Serial Knitters
8427 122nd Ave NE, Kirkland, WA 98033
(425) 242-0086

This shop is my most local of the yarn shops.  They have a great general selection, and some special yarns.  While they try to carry a wide selection,

they focus on handpainted yarns.

They have a wide variety of price points.  They want to meet the needs of high spending and low spending knitters.  There are quite a few yarns that I have never seen,

The staff is very knowledgeable.  They have one special staff member, Annelie Wallborn, who designs and teaches at the store.

That's all for today.  I will be with the group tomorrow night hitting the shops.  I don't know if I will have energy to blog when I get home, but I'l try.

Good night for now.
Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the world with new yarn (but just one skein.)

2012 Puget Sound LYS Tour Day 2

Yesterday on the 2012 Sound LYS Tour, Allifer, GwenS, and I hit 7 shops.  Yes, 7 LYS in one crazy day.  The great thing about the tour is that you get to see a lot of shops.  The bad thing about the tour is that by trying to hit 21 of them (and be in the running for the $500 gift certificate, because it's all about the prizes), we are just getting a "taste" of each shop.  Back to the good news;  we hope/plan to come back to most of them.



We drove up north to Pinch Knitter in Stanwood. We left at about 8:30 am and got to the shop right as it was opening. OOOOOO so cute. I loved how open and airy the shop was.  Not at all cluttered, but with a really great selection of not just the usual yarns.












For instance, they had a whole wall of Dale of Norway.  It looked like every color imaginable.  Now, I don't do colorwork, YET, but I hope to, and I know that I can find a ton of great colors here, in person.




Gwen liked the tons of colors of Malabrigo, especially Finito & Lace.  The staff was super helpful and friendly.

Stop 2 was at Great Yarns in Everett.

I think they had more cool buttons than any of the other shops.



 Their featured yarn was the mink yarn I put at the top of the post.

I plan/hope to make a pair of fingerless gloves with this yarn.
 Just think:  Mink gloves.  They had a very nice selection, and were quite big.  There is a bargain room downstairs.

Stop 3 was Main Street Yarns in Mill Creek.  GwenS really loved the special pattern this shop had available for the Tour. 

We ate a quick lunch after this stop.  Main Street Yarns was in a really nice retail area, and there was a good selection of restaurants nearby.

Stop 4 was The Fiber Gallery in North Seattle. 

This shop was fantastic.  It had a huge amount of Malabrigo (very important to Gwen), tons of sock yarn, and every color of Cascade 220.  It is close enough, that we can come back quite easily.  Thank goodness!

Stop 5 was Tea Cozy yarn.  This was a pretty small store, but still very nice.  It had a very good selection considering the size. 

Stop 6 was Bad Woman Yarn in the Wallingford Center in Seattle.



This seemed to be very tiny at first, but it was packed with yarn goodness, and had more space than I thought at first.  The staff was super helpful.  They had a nice bargain/sale area where both Allifer and I bought some yarn to make sweaters.  They had a ton of both Malabrigo and Madelinetosh.  I will definitely return. 



This was going to be our last stop, but we were making great time, so we decided to head back to the Eastside of Lake Washington, and visit our local yarn shop, Serial Knitters.  I had already  visited this shop yesterday, but Allifer and GwenS had not. Allifer got the featured pattern and a skein of sock yarn to make the special fingerless gloves.  She loves the pattern, and that there is enough yarn to make 3 pairs of the gloves.

That's all for now, I'm falling asleep at the keyboard.

Stay safe and well.

f1bercat
shaping the planet..zzzzzzzzz......