Yarn Everywhere!
There is probably some irony in the fact that I spent nearly two weeks around the greater Seattle area, and the only time I actually entered the city proper was on our way home from Vancouver Island, when our GPS stopped working and we ended up taking the freeway right by downtown before we figured out what was happening. It was a really pretty view at night--so glad we drove by that way. :-)
However, we did get to visit a fair number of communities around Seattle, not least of which being Redmond, where the Microsoft campus is--of course Logan took us there! We even got to eat lunch at a couple of their on-campus ethnic cafeterias. I opted for Indian food, and was pretty sad that my cold prevented me from fully enjoying the flavours I knew were present. (Side note: I gained respect for Microsoft as a company when we went to throw out our plates and found that nearly everything on my tray was compostable plastic or paper, and MS has two bins for compost and only one for the landfill. Honestly, I don't know what ever gets put in the latter. Maybe if someone brought their own plastic cutlery, just to be a jerk?)
My mother and I both being knitters, we also wanted to visit a couple of Local Yarn Stores (LYS) to bask in glorious yarny options. Living in the North, most of our yarn shopping is done online, so we often take it on faith, or just take the risk, that the yarn we are ordering will be the softness, colour, or look that we want when we buy it. To actually touch the yarns and see all the options available before buying them was a huge treat, especially as many of these stores carry yarns that are quite specialized and luxurious. When a quick internet search turned up scads of yarn stores in the area, the idea of visiting a yarn store or two morphed into doing a "yarn store crawl."
My social media usage was seriously curtailed during my trip, but I did manage to post about the stores we visited on my My Secret Wish by Talena Facebook page as we went, so I am simply going to repost those posts here for posterity. (Posty posted posting... :-D)
February 13:
I have been doing a yarn store crawl in the Seattle area while visiting my brother here, although it has been hampered by all four of us (my mom, brother, 2-year-old son, and I) having one of the top 3 Worst Colds Ever.
We started at Serial Knitters in Kirkland, which was a lovely store with friendly service. The ladies knitting together in the back looked like they held that position often, and the customer I mistakenly took for staff laughingly explained she only lived there, not worked there.
Great place. Check it out next time you are in this neck of the woods.
The next store we went hunting for was no longer in business--that's what we get for trusting a GPS that hadn't been updated in 5 years! It was a combination tea/yarn store, but we weren't out of luck yet--there was another one of these awesome combination stores in Ballard, and we headed straight over there instead (after calling to make sure they still WERE in business!) Jean and Patricia at The Tea Cozy were wonderful to deal with, and we got some luscious yarny treats from here.
I picked up my first ever skeins of Madelinetosh yarn, something long-coveted on my wish list.
Project-in-progress: my mom's first cable project. (Oh, yes, she did choose a travelling cable stole.)
February 15:
Yesterday, we were feeling a little healthier, so we headed out and about again. We had three yarn stores south of here on the roster. As it turns out, Tolt Yarn and Wool was the only one of the three still in business--but it made the whole trip worthwhile on its own.
Found in the little town of Carnation, Washington, it is bursting with charm, character, and comfort. The spacious interior is reminiscent of an old-fashioned hardware store, with yarn tucked into wooden crates and boxes and acid-etched cement floors. The selection was stunning and a feast for the eyes. In the back, the Saturday knitting crowd happily shared their projects-in-progress with us as they clicked away by a roaring fire in the wood stove.
As I checked out with my Donegal Tweed yarn in a yummy shade of Kelly green (really from Donegal, Ireland!), one of the two ladies on staff that day gave me an amazing tip about how the yarn washes from her own personal experience with it... and lovingly wrapped my skeins in tissue and sealed the package with a sticker before popping it into a lovely paper shopping bag. (I'm a sucker for great presentation.)
If I ever open a yarn store, this is going to be high on the list of stores I try to emulate. Another store I highly recommend!
February 17:
One of the knitters we met at Tolt Yarn and Wool recommended that we stop at Mount Vernon's WildFibers on our way home the next day, so we did. And we are SOOO glad. What a lovely little shop! The yarn selection is stunning, and arranged around the walls by weight, so it is easy to find what you are looking for. The samples on display around the shop were beautiful, and the lady working that day said they were mostly knit by the owner and her mother. With yarns from Rowan, Madelinetosh, and more, this is one yarn store you won't want to miss.
...Not to mention the rest of the town, which was oozing with vintage charm. We have now put Mount Vernon on our "places to come and explore" list for our next visit to Washington.
Project-in-Progress: Pink Hawaii socks--a pattern I will likely make available when I finally finish the pair!
And so ended our yarny adventures. I had planned to do much more knitting on the trip than I did, but The Cold sapped all my energy, including my will to knit (!). However, I did finally finish the mittens I started for Levi on the way down the day after we got home:
3-Colour Revolution Mittens! Fun project for my little man!
Logan was a really great sport about chauffeuring us around to the various stores, and also helped with entertaining the whiny, sick toddler so we could actually look. What a great brother/uncle! Thanks, Logan! This was definitely a fun part of our trip!
