I bring you more yarn

I know my blog with yarn pictures? How novel. Anyways as you know I like to put a little money into the local economy when I travel. I buy vacation yarn, D likes it because he gets a pair of socks or two and we have way less stuff collecting dust on shelves. I do miss the refrigerator magnets though.

Normally I try to buy local yarns or roving. That way the money stays even more local, theoretically. It at least has a couple of generations of locality to it. Now if you've been to a yarn store recently, haven't we all, you know the stores are as varied as the knitters. A good store in my opinion has a varied selection. I like a lot of sock yarn but occasionally want to knit a sweater. 

We made a run down to the local shop Athena Fibers. I like it because it has a nice mix of yarns fibers and tools. The thing it is not stellar on is the local yarn selection. Now keep in mind that I go there one a year, usually during the summer. It may have a wonderful selection of local yarns that are sold out every time I go. But have no fear I can find lots of not local lovelies. I do find it ironic that I travel to South Dakota to buy yarns from Wales and Germany. What is a knitter to do other than fall in love and bring some home?

Colinette Jitterbug in Raphel colorway. I know it is not a usual color combination for me, but it spoke to me, spoke to me! They always have the 400 yard skeins which I love.

D picked out Jitterbug in Copper Beach. He is trying to pick more subtle colors so he can wear his socks to work without worrying they will burn out some eyeballs. Turns out engineers are a delicate bunch, I kid.

You know I was worried about running out of yarn on the train ride home so I bought an emergency skein of Zauberball. Since it is already balled up it is ready to knit, no swift or ball winder necessary. OK fine that was just a convenient excuse to get another Zball. I do so love the stuff and I realized the green/blue ball I bought in New Hampshire earlier this year is really for D. I may be able to keep a ball of red/pink/purple for me. 

Now the pencil roving I found was local so I was super happy about that. If you look in all the nooks and crannies you will have success. This is corriedale fiber from High Prairie Fibers. I am hoping it lives up to its colorway name of magic.

I've been promising myself some new tools for a while. I finally have a darning egg to repair some socks. I am still practicing using it. I darned a pair of D's socks right before the hole became a hole. I'm sure there is a certain finesse that I have yet to acquire, but I am working on it. My darning is not pretty yet , but it gets the job done, and keeps the socks in rotation.

I passed up the cubic needles on our trip to WEBS in favor of the Carbonz needles. Clearly if I needed emergency yarn I also needed emergency needles too. I am only being logical here. The metal stitch markers my HiyaHiya caught my fancy too. They're thinner than the plastic ones. Oddly enough I got a free one off of a new shirt D bought and really liked it so...

It is getting to be fiber festival time here and I though I better show of my summer purchases before I show off my festival purchases.

I have not tapped into this stash yet but the same can not be said for the New Hampshire purchases. I am down a couple of skeins there. Don't worry I have a replacement idea list. Rhinebeck will be here soon enough. If not Southern Adirondack festival is a tad over a week away. It is all good here.

South Dakota wants me to buy yarn

After our most recent trip I have come to the conclusion that South Dakota wants me to buy yarn there. Our flight was canceled the night before and as always I put the time to good use. My great Father in law allowed me an extra day of use on the car, Hubby and I headed off to the yarn shop. 

I don't feel comfortable taking pictures inside stores but I got one of the sign outside. Now I know I should have taken one of the building too. It is a big old house that started out as a parsonage. It was relocated from downtown Sioux Falls to its current location. It had been a Bed and Breakfast and a Tea Shop too. Hey if you're going to lose a tea shop it might as well be turned into a yarn store.

Hubby was very happy to have a large sitting area to relax in with a nice clerk to talk to. She kept him entertained while I shopped. Good thing too because I am an indecisive color picker. D says the sitting area was so nice because it was in a large pleasant room. Some yarn stores are no bigger than closets.

I managed to narrow down my choices and I will show them to you in another post. I'm still trying to decide if they will work with the patterns I thought or if I want to change it up a bit.

If you have to spend an extra day in South Dakota I know where you should go for stash enhancement.