Vacation Yarn Crawl

From our first stop, Pasadena. My guys dropped me off at Skein, a small yarn shop in an industrial area. The owners are an elderly couple came from Hong Kong years ago, and before they opened the shop they actually visited Ed and Mary Ann at the Knitting Room in San Jose to learn the trade. I don't know many Chinese knitters, and The Knitting Room is not well known even in the local knitting circle. It takes 300 miles south to find the small world. My loot: two skeins of Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool. I've been wondering about this yarn since it came on the market as I knit a lot of cables and this yarn supposed to be designed for that purpose.



One souvenir skein of Bristol Yarn Gallery Buckingham, 80% baby alpaca, 20% silk, fingering weight, very yummy.



From Village Spinning and Weaving in Solvang. I have been visiting their super sized booth at Stitches West every year, now seeing their store, was amazed how small it was. But then everything was there, just tightly cramped together. Henry got very interested in some kiddie sized looms and gave me a guilt trip for not bringing one of them home. I convinced him that there are many weavers we can visit and if he indeed would like to devote his time in weaving I'd get him/us a real loom.

Instead I brought home two fat skeins of natural colored alpaca. A little more than a pound, over 1400 yards. I see a nice big shawl from either Victorian Lace Today, Folk Shawls, or A Gathering of Lace.



From our day trip to Santa Cruz, found these on the shelf at Logos, a bookstore on Pacific (down town SC) that sells both new and used books. They are: - Designing Knitwear by Deborah Newton (possible first edition) - Glorious Knitting by Kaffe Fassett (British edition) - Loop-d-Loop by Teva Durham (it was only $10)