There was a fair amount of internal debate on how to capture or share some of my thoughts and experiences on the trip. It was  so much fun and I will never forget all of the memories and places I visited, but there was so much going on it is difficult to document, so I am just going to wing it and do the best that I can.

Edinburgh Yarn Shops:

Ginger Twist:

This quaint yarn shop is focused on indy yarn but not in the traditional sense. The owner  hand dyes her own yarn and has a smattering of other yarns. As an American I found the shop very small, but it was jam packed with yarn in every little square inch of the store.

One of the things I immediacy noticed was that the blend of the yarn are very different from back home. I picked up some souvenir “hand dyed” which has some Masham  fiber. I also bought some Gotland lace that is single farm sourced from Chopped Ginger, as well as a little knitting bag which colorways were exclusive to this shop.

Be Inspired:

Hands down my favorite shop. I can’t say enough about the owner I could stay and chat with her for hours. I got to see a handful of yarns that I haven’t seen in real life and that was informative. This shop specializes in Indie dying and I saw  Uschitia, Hedgehog, Wollemise, but also some others including their own yarn  Shillidisair ( the owners are now retired) and Orkney Angora( I went pretty nuts but… mainly because I am really limited to light airy fibers due to my sensitivity to alpaca and mohair) this was a total science related purchase, but I am very excited about it,

Kathy’s Closet:

My friend and I went here  on the tour and we hear Karie Westerman and Lucy Hague speak. this shop focuses on British Wools and  while I did pick up some handspun and a new book by Baah Ram Ewe (that I had not seen before) I held off a bit on buying a lot  since we had not yet made it to Shetland.

Hearing and seeing Karie and Lucy’s stuff was amazing. My mind is still blown at Lucy’s beautiful samples and even the most sophisticated knitter’s on the trip were scratching their head on how the samples and designs were knit. I have no words, but a few pictures: