You know at halloween you can get fun sized candy bars, I borrowed the same approach and did a smaller version of the Puget Sound Yarn Tour. The tours is 26 stores over the course of 5 days ( This year was the 10 year anniversary of the tour). I have done the whole tour in past years, but with the vacation schedule this year I thought it would be fun to take it a little bit easier and do some favorites or centrally located stores. Each store has a free pattern and a discounted yarn that is featured in the pattern (some stores have a knit and crochet pattern).
In the end I managed to visit 10 stores
Fiber Gallery
Tea Cozy
Yarn of Eden
Mad Cow Yarns
TOLT Yarn and Wool
Serial Knitters
Acorn Street
Weaving Works
Bad Woman Yarn
Churchmouse Yarns & Tea
I really loved seeing what the stores had to offer this year and that each store had buttons to hand out to participants when they got their tour passport stamped(if you visit a certain number of stores you get entered in to a raffle to win prizes (alas I am a consistent loser in this category).
I was on pretty good behavior, I only bought 6 skeins of yarn. The things I got most excited about was seeing some staff at the yarn stores I know pretty well. My girlfriends think it is really funny that I actually know some of the shop owners because I didn’t really learn to knit until I met them…. After I ran in to a moderator from the Churchmouse Yarns and Teas while eating dinner I promised my friends ” That’t it, I don’t know anyone else on Bainbridge Island, I swear.”
Okay back to my day of fiber, friends, and fun…. things that really jumped out at me this year were the Japanese Stitch crochet and sitich dictionaries I found at Weaving Works, Elsa Wool from TOLT, and Silk Purse by Alchemy Yarns at Churchmouse.
Acquisition:
Windward by BabyCocktails
2 skeins of Little Brother in Rosemary
2 skeins of Little Brother in Cracked Pepper
2 skeins of Elsa Wool in Lace weight
2 skeins Silk Puse in Alchemy
Steve Smith Tea Sampler
Chocolate Mint Tea from Harney and Sons
Some French Tea which escapes me from the moment.
Japanese Crochet book
Japanese Stitch dictionary
Color work Inspiration Book
Work in Progress:
Freshly Fallen by Amy Miller
Arlo by Michel Wang
“Goodnight Moon” needlepoint
Finished:
Acorn Trail
Chunky Circle Scarf