Yarn (Store) Pr0n: Unwind

So here's the deal.

On my last trip to California, I visited Unwind. And it was awesome.

And somehow I never blogged about it. Until now.

It's been a while since the trip, but I wanted to give the shop it's proper review. I don't remember as many details as I'd like, but I wanted to at least share the pictures.


The Knitting Nest has a wall of Cascade, Wildfiber has a wall of Koigu, and Unwind has a wall of Lorna's Laces. (I'm pretty sure this is all Shepherd Sock.) So pretty. I was tempted to buy some, but I decided I had enough Shepherd Sock in my stash.


Also, I drooled (but not literally) over this basket filled with cashmere and silk blends. The owners at unwind did a great job of combining yarns in the shop. (Like the Berroco yarns.)


I did buy a skein of this. This is Cherry Tree Hill Limited Edition sock yarn for September 2008. The colorway is "Burnished Berry." Yummy.


There was a friendly group of knitters gathered at the shop. You could tell they were regulars. I wish I remembered their names.


The dog was also a regular.


I was impressed by the ball winder. It's unlike any other I've seen. (See it in action here.)


The details have faded, but the yarn remains. You can see what I bought in detail here.

All my pictures from Unwind are here. I wish I had posted this sooner, but it feels good knowing I did it. If you are a regular at Unwind, please leave a comment and tell us more.

Yarn Pr0n: Hill Country Weavers' Off Site Sale

Saturday was the second day of the Hill Country Weavers off site sale.


If there was this much on day two, I can't imagine what day one was like.

While there was plenty of fuzzy stuff and ribbon yarn, there was also a good selection of non-novelty yarns.


Here are some tempting baskets of Colinette yarn. I came home with a skein of Iona. They also had Noro, a bit of Claudia's Hand Painted and Debbie Bliss, not to mention books, patterns and weaving equipment.


There was yarn in every nook and cranny, just like the store.


This was one of the big winners for me. It's Needful Yarns Ceramic, and it's supposed to actually lower your body temperature. As the name implies, the key is ceramic. (Most of the yarn is rayon.) If it's true, I want ceramic underwear.

I bought 8 skeins of red ceramic so I can make a tank top, and one skein in lavender so I can make a little scarf to cool my neck.


Speaking of unusual fibers, I also bought Dale of Norway Hauk. It's treated with Teflon to repel water. I think I'm going to try some colorwork mittens or a hat.


Besides seeing the amazing stash of yarn, we got to see Suzanne's House when we checked out. She even invited us to check out her office. It was impressive, filled with all sorts of treasures, like this antique (I assume) spinning wheel.


I couldn't end this entry without posting a picture of this sign. This would look great in my living room.

yarn pr0n: Picks from the Knitting Nest

Last Saturday they had a sale at The Knitting Nest, and I forgot my camera.

D'oh!

Fortunately, I didn't forget to buy yarn.


This is Cascade Alpaca Lace in Garnet.

If you're really on the ball, you may have noticed that I bought almost 3,500 yards of lace weight, enough for 2 or 3 shawls. That's a lot of yarn, especially for someone who usually dabbles in single skeins.

I took a big risk here. I was flipping through Maggie Righetti's Sweater Design in Plain English this evening, and I happened to turn to the page where she recommends buying a single skein before investing in a sweater's worth of anything. It was almost as if she knew. But she didn't say anything about Easter Eggs promising big savings. (My Easter Egg gave me 15% off.)

I have big audacious plans for this yarn. Big, audacious, secret plans. But perhaps I've already said too much...


I also came home with our good friend Malabrigo. The top skein is "Cuarenta" and the bottom skein is "Strawberry Fields." I like these colors because they go together without being too "matchy matchy."

I have design plans for the Malabrigo as well, but they are not-so-secret and not-so-audacious.

I also hung out with Emily, Ana, Ceci and Gigi while I was there. Emily said someone saw the picture of her combs that I had posted online, and purchased them from her. Whoever you are, mystery purchaser, I'm glad I could help.

I also talked about formats for patterns. I realized publishing patterns on Ravelry was a lot easier than I was making it seem. So thanks to them, I posted this on my blog and on Ravelry this week. The pattern brought record traffic to my blog from the Ravelry page.

Yay for Ravelry!

Yarn Pr0n: KnitPicks

I got my KnitPicks order on Monday. At the time I was distracted by the thing with the flies, so I'm just now getting around to posting pictures.


I was really excited when I found the note in my mailbox that I had a package. I waited in the hallway where I was hardly acknowledged. I could see the package with the KnitPicks tape on it sitting there. I contemplated just taking it. I finally got someone's attention. (The management is not known for customer service.)


Here's the big reveal...


...and all the goodies inside.


The ball winder came in a nifty box. I'm going to find a good use for this.


I'll probably put it together this weekend. I'll be winding some yarn soon.


I got color cards for all the yarns I'm considering, so I can choose the perfect color for Decimal. I was psyched because they include all the new spring colors.


I also got my first set of Harmony dpns. I can't wait to use them. I was pleasantly surprised at how heavy and hard the wood was.

(Wow. That sentence sounds bad out of context.)


Finally, here is the yarn itself. On the far left there's is a skein of Shadow in "Vineyard Heather." I got that so I can have some lace weight on hand. The rest are candidates for Decimal. From left to right, the other yarns are Gloss in "Cosmos", Cotlin in "Key Lime", Shine Sport in "Grass" and Merino Style in "Hollyberry."

I'm already swatching the Merino Style. I'll let you know how it goes.

Yarn (Store) Pr0n: Yarnorama

Yarnorama was the third stop on the yarn crawl. We had lunch while we were there. (It helps that they have their own cafe so you can grab a bite after the drive.)


Yarnorama isn't strictly yarn. They have equipment for several types of fiber arts. I was looking forward to buying more fiber. Here is a herky-jerky look at their fiber selection.


They had some beautiful drop spindles. Click on the picture to get a better look at the craftsmanship.


Here's some more spindles and other tools. I considered getting a wrist distaff that doubled as a wraps per inch tool, but I decided to save my money for fiber.


They also have a nice selection of wheels and looms. Clara bought a Louet Julia while she was there.


This is Susan, the owner. She answered a bunch of my questions, and helped me decide what fiber to buy. She also said I could come back and try out the spinning wheels on the floor before I decide which one to buy. She also helped Clara buy choose her wheel, demonstrated how the silk hankies work and how to spin them.


Speaking of silk, here's some whole silk cocoons. If you shake them you can hear the silk worm inside. (Yes, they're dead. It's gross, but that's how you get silk without breaking the cocoon.)


They had plenty of yarn as well. There was cashmere, Malabrigo and a nice selection of yarns dyed in-house. Here's some of Yarnorama's hand painted sock yarn. They also their own hand dyed linen yarn and silk hankies.


As the sign says, this yarn is from local llamas. I think it's mill spun. Very nice.


In the end, I bought fiber instead of yarn. The one on the left is Corriedale, bought specifically for testing out spinning wheels and learning new techniques.

The middle bag is Coopworth. I'm spinning it right now. After spinning Merino, I was surprised by the "teeth" in the wool.

The one on the right is Blue Faced Leicester (or BFL). I plan to ply it with the Coopworth. Susan thought it would work. All the wool is natural, none of it is dyed.

Yarnorama is a bit of drive, but it is worth it for the selection of spinning surprise. I think I'll be back.

There are more pictures of Yarnorama here.

Hill Country Yarn Crawl 2008

After some debate I decided to go on the Hill Country Yarn Crawl and take the bus that left from Hill Country Weavers. I couldn't make it today, when most of the people went and the bus went to the shops out of town. But I did have fun going to all my local shops and getting to see a new one.

You can see all the pictures I took on the yarn crawl here.


I got to Hill Country Weavers nice and early, where I picked up my passport and my tote bag for all my goodies.


Hill Country Weavers gave out skeins of Plymouth Ocean Side Organic cotton yarn and a booklet with patterns for these dishcloths.


Trish of Tanglewood Fiber Creations was there, with all her beautiful, luscious handspun yarn.


Pam got a skein of Tanglewood yarn. It was 50% silk, 50% cashmere, with beads. It was so soft that she decided to wear it as a necklace.

There were only eight people who went on Saturday, so they reserved a 15 passenger van. The van was late. Way late. So more than an hour after we were supposed to leave, this is what showed up to pick us up:


Yep, there wasn't even enough room for eight, much less 15. They had confirmed the time and the size of the van the day before. We weren't thrilled.

So we waited for another van to come.


Finally, a second van arrived. This one was bigger, but there still weren't enough seats. We ended up taking both.

As we talked to our driver in the second van, we discovered that she wasn't a driver, and she didn't have a fleet van. Apparently she works for the owner of the business, but not as a driver. She was driving her own personal van. Her boss had called her up and asked her to come let us use her van. When we needed two vehicles, she got roped into driving us all around town.

The driver was very nice despite the situation. She enjoyed the shops, and she may try knitting. (She already sews.) We had a good time talking. She said she had a great time, and I told her not to tell her boss that.

So that was the main hitch in the plan. We still made it to all the shops, but we didn't have as much time to spend. But we didn't let it ruin our day.


Our first stop was The Knitting Nest, where they gave us kits for spider headbands, just in time for Halloween. In addition to the new notion holders, they had several new yarns including Cascade Greenland (the same stuff I got from Wildfire), Laines Du Nord Calipso, Cascade Cotton Rich and Knit One Crochet Too Ty-Dy Socks. And they had this...


This is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in Amy's Vintage Office, the limited edition color I've been drooling over. Stacy said they ran out of the sock weight already, and these three skeins in Shepherd Worsted were all that was left. I bought one of them.

Speaking of Stacy, there's a story behind this picture:


Stacy is a trooper. She cut her hand when she broke the vase her anniversary roses came in. Since then, she's had surgery on her hand. (She showed me her stitches.) This was less than a week ago, yet she was at the store, on lots of painkillers.

She agreed to let me take a picture, and I said I wouldn't put it up if I didn't get a good shot. She joked that I could edit her face out.

Well, I got a bad shot, and Picnik had some effects that matched the Halloween decor. So I went for it.


The next stop was Yarnorama in Paige, where we had lunch. I'll have a full entry on them later, but I wanted to show off the hand dyed silk hankies. We each got one with a little kit that had instructions for knitting a little pouch. Susan, the owner, showed us how to stretch the silk into roving that we could knit.


I bought a pound and a half of fiber. But that doesn't compare to Clara, who bought a spinning wheel. (It's in the box she's holding.)

After Yarnorama, we went to Bluebonnet Yarn Shoppe. We didn't have much time because they closed at five. But we did have time to look around. Everything was 10% off for yarn crawlers. (Even the clearance yarns were 60% off, instead of the usual 50% off.)


Everyone got a kit for these little pouches and a pattern for both knit and crochet versions. They were in paper bags, so we didn't know exactly what we got until we opened them.


The final stop was Gauge, where they gave out vouchers for free classes, and their yarns were also 10% off for yarn crawlers. They still had a good selection of Handmaiden Sea Silk and Double Sea Silk. I snagged a skein of the Double Sea Silk in the "Vintage" colorway.


Cheva was there sporting her latest creation. (Also, Carly was sporting some cool felted bangles.)

I was happy to find that Gauge has some roving for sale. Now I can get my fiber fix closer to home.

I was exhausted when we returned to HCW, and my arms were full. Here is what I got on the crawl.


There are more details about the yarn here and the fiber here.

And here's all the freebies.


The bus ride is over, but there's one day left to buy your passports, get you free gifts and enter the drawing. They're at all the participating shops.