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.
Not bad for a weekend jaunt, eh? Ok, ok -- the bag in the back right only 2 of those colors were purchased during the hop. That's the Rowan Summer Tweed, now I have enough for the Tobias sweater -- you like the colors? Bag in the back left -- that's four hanks of Schaefer Esperanza, yum. Also in the basket are 2 sks of Suri Elegance -- enough for a full sized shawl. Among the bags here there are 2 sweaters, 1 shawl, 2 shrugs, 1 stole, 1 hat, 1 sack, 4 pairs socks, 2 pairs fingerless mitts, 2 scarves, 1 vest, 1 pair of slippers, 3 sks laceweight merino and 2 sks alpaca which I don't know what I'm going to do with,...well I'm not sure what I'm going to to do with the Esperanza either -- but there's enough for a sweater.
Here we have laceweight from Danette Taylor Original Yarns.
And yarn in a similar colorway from the same vendor for a sweater. This was a kit and came with a pattern for a nice cardi. the loopy stuff is for the rib, cuffs, collar, and buttonband.
Then from Discontinued Brand Name Yarn I was lucky enough to snatch this kit for a scarf in Wool in Woods.
I also purchased the last of this dk mohair boucle again Wool in the Woods. Just yarn -- lots of yardage -- but I've no idea what it will be. It's pretty tho, no?
Finally I got this fiber -- sight unseen -- the only description I got was rose pinks from Spinning Bunny. I never know what I'm going to do with fiber. That will all depend on how it spins up. It's 1lb total, I think.
And here is clue 2 (and 1) of MST3. I know I'm slow -- but I've been busy buying yarn. Today -- last day of TKGA.
You know the one? The one that broke the camel's back? This would be that one. What we have here is 10 sks of cascade -- 9 of which I bought for 3 pairs of felted clogs. The 10th being, um free because if you buy 10 sks of cascade you get 10% off the lot making one essentially free. And there's the 3 miscellaneous balls, one for each of the clogs for "interest". Now, I could justify this, watch, it's a stretch, but since clogs are for your feet, they could pass for very thick socks therefore the purchase would be exempt from KFYS, because, it's sock yarn! Even the extra skein, the pink one at the top, would be fine because it was a "gift" (w/ purchase). However, do you see that little bitty shiny skein at the bottom -- the glossy, laceweight, yes that's the one...that's the last straw. There's no justifying it. This lovely thing from Schaefer Yarns, Andrea, is 100% silk in colorway Margaret Mead. This cutie pie is contraband all the way -- even my anniverssary around the corner couldn't save this little outlaw. Because, although my hubby gifted me with a yarn card, it's for a different store. So even though I could buy even more yarn (which I did) with that card (some beautiful laceweight, 100% soy silk from Conjoined Creations, thank you very much), I couldn't lump this little guy with that -- I could but it wouldn't be just stretching the truth, it would be a flat out lie.