I have now been back from Seattle for one or two weeks, who knows. I have completely lost track of time lately. I don’t care to get on an airplane again for months.
While in Seattle, I made a point of visiting a couple of yarn shops, of course. Mostly as an excuse to buy sock yarn…which I feel is the perfect thing to purchase while traveling. It fits well in a suitcase and there is usually some sort of locally dyed yarn to snatch up. My first yarn store pilgramage was in fact, quite a pilgrimage. We boarded a ferry and traveled across the water to Bainbridge Island to Churchmouse Yarns & Teas. The shop is another of the Brooklyn Tweed SHELTER stores, so I feel like we are sister shops in a way. I met all of their staff, including their wonderful owner Kit. The store is just lovely. It has soft lighting and huge comfy spaces. The fixtures are all wood and feel like furniture pieces. They have a fabulous selection of Habu Textiles and a great little display for this lady’s book..who may look familiar to some of you. Our shops couldn’t be more different in look and feel, but I just loved the place. I could spend a bit of time with a cup of tea in one of their comfy chairs with some knitting needles.
I picked up some Socks that Rock while I was there, of course. It is still my favorite sock yarn base. I have an entire collection of the yarn and eventually will actually knit socks with it. Because I fell down and had some sort of money spending accident at the Fleuvog store in Seattle, I now have three new pairs of shoes that show off hand knit socks quite well..so some motivation to start making some!
My next yarn shop was the Fiber Gallery, which is just north of the city but a short car ride. Loved this shop. Their inventory is rather similar to ours actually. They carry quite a bit of Blue Sky Alpacas, Spud and Chloe, Malabrigo, Madelinetosh, Berroco and Cascade. Even some of our smaller companies, like O-Wool, were represented there. I picked up these two skeins of sock yarn from Hazel Knits, a local company. Lovely stuff. The owner was marvelous. Definitely a must see when you are out that way.
While we were in Seattle for a wedding, we did manage to get quite a bit of sightseeing in. We did the “adult version” of the underground tour, which was spectacular. We had a cheesey guide who told silly stories, but seeing the underground of Seattle was really cool. If you aren’t aware, Seattle actually has an entire story of buildings under the sidewalks that they built on top of…it’s a little odd. While on the tour, we spotted this very yarn bombed park, which totally made my trip. Every tree and lamp post was covered in brightly covered wraps. Amazing.
Overall, the trip was really fab. I did get a lot of work done on our fall schedule too! So be sure to check it out. I am still adding thing today but a great deal of classes are already posted. I also managed to get my albers cowl almost entirely finished and will post pictures of that this week. But I think I did also purchase more yarn than I knitted with..which makes it seem like I moved backwards a bit.