More Shopping!

Whew! I don't think the KFYS 07 was such a good idea. It was suppose to keep me from adding to the stash and all it did was made me wait and do it later. And boy did I make up for lost time! This weekend was the Peninsula to Pier LYS Shop Hop, and I did all 16 stores. I started slow by visiting the middle stores (where I live) during lunch, Rug & Yarn Hut and Yarndogs Thursday, and Commuknity and the Knitting Room Friday. Friday night my favorite Aunt VJ came up and Saturday morning she, my eldest daughter K and I piled into my Pacifica and did the "southern" stores starting with Continental Stitch in Morgan Hill.

In the morning I programmed the 7 stores in my GPS and off we went. The day was beautiful for driving and shopping. CS was a good first stop as they have so many inspirational ideas! VJ bought a kit for the carpet bag in IW Felt, something she's been wanting do since she first saw the bag in a previous issue of IW Knit. The Pacifica got us to Carmel even though I already knew how to get to Knitting-By-the-Sea, however I didn't have a street number to put into the GPS so I made one up. But you know, the funny thing about making up a number is we had to drive to that spot before the GPS would move to the next item in the itinerary. Each shop on the tour features a 1 skein pattern and special on the yarn used -- K got the yarn for KBTS's project, a cute mini duffle purse. The next stop was Monarch Knits where I saw a Summer Tweed sweater out of Rowan #41 in a different colorway and I thought, "Hmm, I have that magazine but I don't remember that sweater". I got some luscious karaoke to SPIN! MK had expanded since I'd been there last and has a full spectrum of spinning fiber! It was lunchtime and I highly recommend being in Monterey when you're hungry -- there's lots of places to eat off Lighthouse -- we got directions to Sea Harvest and enjoyed fresh fish, yum!

Half the day had gone and we had 4 more shops to go starting with Yarn Place in Capitola and ending with Luminous Threads in Felton. These shops we go to semi-regularly when we do our annual retreat. I bought the crochet project featured at Swift Stitch (the sample and yarn was so luscious that I don't mind that it's not knit). VJ bought fuzz for a felted Hedge Hog. At the Golden Fleece both of us got a mini needle felting kit and I got a deal on 8 sks of a discontinued color of Kathmandu Aran (I'm not one to turn down pink yarn on sale). As an added bonus we stopped at Yarndogs so K and VJ could get their passports stamped.

When we got home we all put our pj's on and knit -- we were sooo tired! My awesome husband (and I'm not saying that because he's reading this over my shoulder) got us takeout from our favorite Chinese restaurant and we all got to rest up for the next day's itinerary.

Sunday morning we were all gung ho to visit the "northern" stores. VJ hadn't been to ANY of those stores. Nine Rubies was the first stop. I'd never been to this one either and boy was it a treat! They had hired a consultant to do the their layout and it was well worth it. You could do a 360 in the room and see everything they had. The yarn/project featured was Baywood Yarns and the dyer was there. I got 2 sks of the featured yarns (1 each in the same colorway, which by the way was called "Jocelyn's Red" -- ha, ha -- named, not for me but for one of the staff at Nine Rubies). From there we headed back south to Creative Hands where I found a pattern book for my Kathmandu (score!). We had lunch in Menlo Park after a visit to Knitter's Studio then left for the last two shops in Los Altos. At Uncommon Threads I thumbed through their copy of Rowan #41. Remember the sweater I saw at Monarch? Turns out I already had 2 of the 4 colors for the sweater so I bought 2 more. At Full Thread Ahead K got the featured project, a lovely feather and fan in hand painted merino laceweight, and I got my 16th stamp and turned in my passport. This was the end of the line for VJ too as she had guests waiting back home. K decided she wanted to fill her passport so we went on to revist those shops that were close to home before calling it a day.

I'm still buzzing from the yarn fumes -- the hop was fantabulous fun. Please visit the shop hop link to find links to all the shops and pictures of the projects. Kudos to the organizers and all the yarn shops that participated -- my stash runneth over.