In the NYC I had the opportunity to visit several yarn stores with some of my girlfriends. It was cool to see place I have read or seen online, but my favorite thing was just hanging out and kitting with my friends. Since we live in a digital era a lot of the people we feel connected to are not geographically close so the trip was especially meaningful to me…

So here we go first stop HABU ( not pictured) It was nice, but as most of the yarn stores are it was tiny.. Okay it is tiny even by NY standards. I think we could only fit 3 people in there at a time. The place is in an office building and you have to be buzzed into the space.

Next stop is Purl Soho. My friend Julie mentioned that nothing in SOHO opens before 11 and she is right. It is a weird concept for someone from the west coast. The easiest way I can describe it is that this areas is operating like it is Sunday morning. They start out slow. The store is beautiful. It is a smaller store (remember I hail from the west coast where space is not as much of a premium) so it is narrow but very deep, it looks very much like the photographs on the website. It was a real kick to see the samples that have been featured on the Purl Bee, and of course I needed to model some of them.

 

I also stopped by Knitty City and Annie & Company NeedlePoint and Knitting. These stores are both located  in Uptown and have nice assortments of yarn. I bought stuff I can’t find at home at these stores. Notions from Annie’s and Koigu, Julie Asslien, and accessories of my Knitters Keep ( particularly excited about this).

Annie’s is a sweet shop and it is big both by NYC standards and mine. If I could have hung out all day at a LYS this is where you would found me. This place feels like a community.

Knitty City is great too.. and is so NYC. It is jam packed with a lot of indie dyers, the space is small, and the people are kind.

 

OH and the other thing, apparently there is no sales tax on yarn in the city:)

 

 

If you follow me on Instagram (@Smyoo_ )you know I have been living it up in NYC for the past week ( more on that later). To say it was amazing would be an understatement.  I am dealing  with trying to reacclimatize to being at home. I spent the day at the zoo and I can’t count the times I said” Do I need to to count?” or ” Your not listening.”

Maybe that’s what I went a little nuts today when there was an update offered by the Plucky Knitter.  I didn’t just fall in to the deep end of the pool I  high dived in to the update in a big way. I think I am back to reality now, but I did take this as an opportunity to give reality the middle finger and enjoy my last few hours of freedom before I have to return to work.

Acquisition:

3 skeins of Plucky Cashmere in Vintage Icebox

3 skeins of Plucky Cashmere in Ogre

4 skeins of Plucky Cashmere in Bauble

5 skeins of Plucky Cashmere in Tophat

2 skeins of Plucky Cashmere in Tiny Bubbles

3 skeins of Plucky  Aran Cashmere in Modern Vintage

3 skeins of Plucky Primo Fingering in Morticia

1 skein of Plucky Primo Fingering in Cider Mill

Work in Progress:

         
Freshly Fallen by Amy Miller

Arlo  by Michel Wang

“Goodnight Moon” Needlepoint

Completed:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

So I used to try to incorporate a new techniques in every project I picked. I have let this idea fallen to the wayside, until my latest project. I recently cast on Arlo by Michele Wang (It is part of the Brooklyn Tweed kids collection).

I have wanted to knit this for a really long time but I always have so many things in my queue (okay I know things haven’t changed), but I just felt it was time to knit  the sweater.

So what’s the something new? I learned how to do a tubular cast on. I really like how it looks. It took me 4 attempts, because I didn’t read the directions. I think reading the directions was the something new:)

Yes it happened. I finished my first adult sweater of 2015. I also have whipped out a sweater for my daughter and a hat. Two out of the three patterns were born out of needing a change of pace from working on adult sweaters.

I am most excited about the Hazelwood Sweater. While making it did feel like my fingers were at the spa( it was done entirely in cashmere). It is the best fitting sweater I have made. I took a look at my latest custom fit measurements and the schematic in the pattern. I was able to figure out adjustments that were needed.. the biggest thing that gave me a bit of anxiety was the understanding that a raglan constructions would not give me  an armhole depth that was too big for my chest measurement. So I contacted the shop, emailed the designer and even posted a couple questions before I decided to give the pattern a go.. the end result is something I am very happy with.