Wee one, all ready for her first yarn crawl! Johanna and I took the kiddos on a North Shore yarn crawl - a trip up the coast, a few stores, babies... good times.

Our first stop was A Yarn Over Marblehead in Marblehead (of course). Cute store, very friendly, and a nice mix of yarns. Some of my faves in the store were Southwest Trading Company's Karaoke yarn (they had the cutest little sample knit up), Mission Falls wool (it's great to see this back in the stores again), and the locally hand-dyed Marblehead merino. The owner is working on a big Charmed Knits window display, so you know I'll be back up there soon to check it out and sign a few books.

Next we headed down to Salem (a whole like four miles away) to Seed Stitch. We'd heard raves about this store and it was lovely. It reminded me of purl in NYC with a table full of luscious swatches to greet you at the front door and all kinds of samples labeled with beautiful little tags. There wasn't nearly as much yarn there as at purl (even though purl is only about a quarter of the size), but like purl, they have only chosen the best yarns so every single yarn in the store is a gem.

We made a longer stop in Salem at Crunchy Granola Baby (love that name!) for some baby time. You know you can do a little nursing and diaper changing at an organic baby store! And what a fabulous baby store this is - so friendly and welcoming, and stocked with cloth diapers, natural baby products and cutie patootie organic baby clothes. There was lots of space for a feeding and some tummy time. We all loved it!

Last on our mini-yarn crawl (I had to be home by early afternoon to pick up the boys from school) was Cranberry Quilters in Hamilton. One of our most fabulous knitsmith knitters, Terri, recommended this store and since she always knits beautiful things, we knew that the store wouldn't disappoint. And it sure didn't. You'd never know that this unassuming house on the roadside would be filled with such wonderful yarns! It's not fancy, but they've got a large selection of yarns with lots of Debbie Bliss and Rowan and a huge space for sitting and knitting. I love it when yarn stores are in houses and the yarn is divided up in different rooms. It's so cool to wander into the next room and discover even more yarn. I wish I had a few extra rooms in my house...

All in all, it was a great trip. It's amazing that there can be so many stores so close to each other (and because of our limited time, we only visited the stores we happened to hear good things about) and yet each of them was so different. Your friendly local store, your high-end luxury store, and the place you know you can go to find the yarn for your next project. As far as yarn stores go, we've got it pretty good up here.

And now for the yarn portion of our trip... First up was Capital Yarns in Chantilly (you'd think it would be closer to the capitol, wouldn't you?). This store saved my hide once when I needed a specific shade of Cascade 220 Superwash and couldn't find it around me anywhere. They sent it lickety split and even sent me a lovely card afterwards.

It actually has a much better selection than you'd expect for a yarn shop in a strip mall, with yarns ranging from acrylics and acrylic blends like Plymouth Encore to Manos and even specialty yarns like Claudia's Handpainted. And the people who work there are extra super nice. This is the South, you know!

Next up was the "nirvana for knitters", Knit Happens, which is not only everything it claims to be, but was also having a HUGE sale. Everything in the store was between 10% and 50% off. Really, everything!

Look, I'm actually inside Knit Happens! I never thought I'd make it here! We spent forever in this store and I'm still not convinced that I saw all the yarn they have. It doesn't look like so much when you come in (just one room of yarn), but there's a lot there! And it's ALL fabulous. And did I mention that it was all on sale?!

I picked up some Cashsoft DK and some Cashmerino DK (in a mango color that I could not resist) for baby sweaters along with the obligatory souvenir Knit Happens Lorna's colorway. What can we learn from a peek at my purchases? I am still completely obsessed with pink. And hey, look at Shannon's loot - yup, she's still diggin' her earth tones. We are who we are, I guess!

Psst, she got that Alchemy Silk Purse yarn in the middle at 50% off! The Luxury Cotton in front is for Shannon's current cozy project and was from our last stop on the DC yarn tour, Stitch DC.

Loved Stitch DC! So cute and every single yarn in the store was beautiful, absolutely no dogs in the bunch. Lots of Karabella and Alchemy and Rowan. There was even yarn from Be Sweet and Habu. Wow! And lookie, nice people too...

Shannon's lucky to have such a sweet store as her local shop. And I was lucky to have a gift certificate to the store, which Shannon sent me for my birthday. I picked out some Rowan all seasons cotton (on sale for 60% off!!) for another baby sweater (doesn't it seem like there's some sort of pregnancy epidemic going around?). I'm thinking a gray hoodie, with either a pink stripe, if it's a girl, or a blue stripe if it's a boy. The colors were inspired by one of Shannon's cats and its beautiful collar.

Oooh, and I couldn't resist the super cute little Mac & Me project bag. It's just the perfect size.

What an awesome yarn crawl! The only thing we missed was this store in Maryland which we discovered online only after we got home. Check out their store philosophy! Great, a reason to come back!

I will never remember everyone I saw. First, there were Tara, Cara, and Sarah. Tara's just started a new blog, Cara wore her new Everyday Cardigan, and Sarah her Dreamweaver cardi and her amazing new blue asymmetrical cable pullover! I ran into Carrie, who is even cuter in person, Lauren, in her fabulous wave pullover and Chappy's Mom. Then the NYC gals, Jackie with her beautiful new Cashcotton cardigan, Nipper in her Weasley, Cassie in her skull and crossbones halter, and Em too. There were also a lot of familiar faces from Massachusetts like Melanie in her gorgeous Lavold sweater, Julia in her new cardigan, Amber, Claudia with her amazing Annie Modesitt corset, and Wendy. And those from further away: Leigh, Carolyn, Nathania, who was working on her Slytherin sweater, and even Amy, Steph, and mamacate and co., who all came all the way from Canada! There were so many more too with lots of new-to-me names and blogs, like SpiderWomanKnits, there's no way I could keep them all straight. (If you saw me there, say hi in the comments!)

knit party in the hotel lobby!

Alright, on to the fair. There were yarns:

just what we were looking for!

a tree full of roving

I was so excited to see Jamie Harmon's yarns at the show. Some of her handspun yarn is in my handspun funky scarf. I picked up another skein of her fabulous yarn to make a matching hat.

again, some of the needle felting projects were the most impressive of the show

can you tell how much interest I had in this spinning demonstration?
look at those socks!

felted llama bunny slippers - too cute!

we saw the sheepdogs outside too

This sweater was on display at the Shelridge Farms booth. We declared them to be "Best in Barn" (and they shared the barn with Morehouse Merino, so that's saying a lot!). What wonderful soft yarns and in the most gorgeous colors - love, love, love them! You can see some of the yarns I bought there in the pic next to the sweater.

And non-yarns:

oh, that's just not right

KnitStix

These were the coolest things. They're knitting needles that are marked like a ruler, so you can measure as you knit. Brilliant!

Building E had free food samples - YUM -
but please no double dipping

While Johanna and I were shopping, Lisa would sometimes stand to the side and work on her Opal sock. Without fail, people would stop and ask her to explain the Magic Loop technique that she was using. She must have done at least four demos. Then, after we were done, she'd walk off with us and the spectators would be shocked to see that she wasn't working at that booth!

And finally, words of advice from a 80's era Knitters mag for those, like me, coming home to and knitting for little ones:

"An active 4-year old can't always take time to coordinate his apparel." So make 'em one of these... (look close - it's all one sweater!)

shudder!
(thanks to Stitchy McYarnpants for sharing this issue of Knitters with us!)

Oddly, this sweater sort of sums up my whole feeling about this weekend and the New York Sheep and Wool Festival: it was so funny staying with Johanna and driving with Lisa, and I couldn't stop grinning from the shopping and from meeting everyone, but still the whole thing was more than a little ridiculous with all that yarn, all that rain, and all of us from the internet together with all those farm animals. Face it, folks, we're pretty weird.

... a visit to the crap store.

Me and the boys had a blast the other day visiting the crap store (nothing against A.C. Moore, it's really just the way the boys say "craft store", remember?). They LOOOOVE the fun fur.

And the $2.00 bracelets.

And that's an Oompa Loompa doll that S has hanging off his shirt. He got it in his kid's meal at Wendy's and wore it the whole day.

Oh yes, we loves us the crap.

The boys have been begging to go down to the Frog Pond in Boston Common (no frogs, just a wading pool for kids), so we did. We splashed around a bit, played in the nearby playground and then went to Downtown Crossing for a snack. And since we were in the neighborhood....

They don't call this place Windsor Button for nothing!

But look, they also have yaaaaaaaarn*.

Happy boys, happy mommy, happy day.

* I only bought a clasp for my latest Sophie and one lone skein of yarn to try out for a design idea. I browsed and fondled, and trust me, they had lots of fabulous stuff that I haven't found elsewhere, but I couldn't think of a reason to bring any of it home. The same thing happened to me on my recent trip to KnitNY. After Jon spotted me there, he asked what I was getting and I told him there were lots of neat, new yarns I'd love to get, but I simply didn't need them. Jon said: "That means your stash is big enough." My response is still the same: "Damn!"

What an incredible knitting weekend! First the yarn trip out to Western Mass all day Saturday, then a few hours of working at the yarn store on Sunday, and last but not least, our Knitsmiths' yarn swap yesterday afternoon. Whew!

colorful stitchers at Colorful Stitches

Saturday, I met up with Kerstin, Claudia (note new blog address!) and a few knit-bloggers in from out-of-town (Annie, Leigh, Melissa, Mary, and Mary Beth) and we hit the road in search of yarn. Every single one of us had a sock-in-progress to knit while in the car. And because I'm now crazy sock lady, I took a picture of each of them: Claudia's, Kerstin's and Annie's, Leigh's, Melissa's and Mary's (note gorgeous peace fleece sweaters!), and Mary Beth's. Fabulous, aren't they? Oh yeah, the socks too! I worked on my supermerino zebra socks (more on them later!)

First stop was Colorful Stitches, which ROCKED! Beautiful store in a lovely house, with gorgeous yarn draped everywhere and Rowan Magpie on sale and many lovely blue yarns which somehow made their way into my basket. Yay! Then it was on to the main event, Webs.

Webs' super wall of supermerino

The front of the store has been remodeled and is now HUGE! They've got everything and in every color. Just look at all that ArtYarns Supermerino! I talked several of my fellow yarn girls into taking some of this yarn that I'm using for my zebra socks home (more on those socks later!). The thing that makes Webs really cool is the warehouse in the back, where you can rummage through bags and boxes and giant cones of yarn. We opened one unassuming box to find over a dozen rather tribble-looking cones of Berroco's Mohair Classic (remember tribbles?). And look, up in the sky, it's scores of blue yarn cones. Ooh, I like this place!

No, I didn't get that blue coned yarn, but I did get one skein of this incredibly soft malabrigo merino yarn and the last of the KFI Cashmereno (the finer, even-softer precursor to Debbie Bliss' Cashmerino), enough for a sweater for me.

And if that weren't enough, Sunday was our Knitsmiths' swap! I brought in some lovely yarns that hadn't inspired me recently, and came home with enough Debbie Bliss cotton angora and Rowan Polar to roll around naked in (uh, no picture of that moment, you'll have to trust me!) and some wicked cool retro yarn that Amber brought in in an old bread bag. Too fun!

Oh and with all that knitting time, I finished my supermerino zebra socks*.

Now I must sleep.

* - Since I seem to be the new supermerino yarn-pusher, I will tempt you by telling you that this pair only took two skeins to make on US6's and it's soooo soft!

This week the boys helped daddy put the new yarn cabinet together.

what does this do?

daddy, you ready for the door?

Yup, I got me the super-fantabulous, mega-popular Kämpe storage system. We've got slanted ceilings in this room, so I couldn't get anything tall, and what I really wanted was cubbyholes like in a real yarn store. So I got the Kämpe boxes. Love them!

The boys were eager to help me put all my yarn in the cabinet, but after I watched them toss an entire storage box of yarn in random cubbyholes, I decided to wait until they were otherwise occupied to finish the job. And as I stood back admiring my half empty cabinet, I didn't even feel bad about the new yarn that the postman had just brought.

for a future Magknits pattern

Color me happy.

The boys don't yet understand that you're supposed to read from left to right. And they're still a little vague on "smile for mommy."

they're smiling at each other

You may be shocked to hear that we here in Boston have no IKEA. Until this year we had to either rent a van and drive to New Jersey to get our hip, affordable home goods or - gasp - go without. But now there's an IKEA less than three hours away! And what could be more fun than a family day trip to IKEA?

Our trip was inspired primarily by my sudden and acute need for yarn storage. All I want for Christmas is a yarn cabinet! My most generous and patient husband chaperoned the kiddos around the store while I searched for the perfect storage system. (Unfortunately, the kiddos aren't "completely" potty trained so no IKEA Smaland for them. Boo hoo. But there were several fun little playspaces hidden in the main showroom as well as plenty of cool sofas to climb on and neat tables crawl under. And they had a blast taking turns playing with this chair in the Children's Furniture area.)

A few hours, one cabinet, a couple of cinnamon buns and loads of other goodies later, we packed ourselves back in the car and drove home. I knitted. Santa hubby says he'll try to put the cabinet together next week. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!

shopping for yarn in stalls - how novel

Look, there's some yarn! Sure, sure, that's what you were expecting to hear. And it was what I was expecting to see. But apparently some people like to make their own yarn. This festival was like a spinner's fantasy! As we passed by basket after basket, stand after stand overflowing with gorgeous roving, I found myself having to look for yarn. "Oh what beautiful colors - wow - do they have any actual yarn - nope - darn."

...and some more roving...

I did enjoy seeing the needle felted crafts made with roving. Everyone seemed to be selling these incredible silk scarves with sections of free form needle felting. And I particularly liked these needle felted pumpkins. Alas, I could not come up with a reason that I needed to buy one.

what do you do with a felted pumpkin?

There was of course plenty of yarn to be had. The Great Adirondack booth was one of the most memorable, as they had yarns in every crazy color and made of every crazy fiber. Just the wackiest things! And tons of it. In the same barn were two other faves of mine, Green Mountain Spinnery, and the best of all Morehouse Merino. We spent at least a half hour at their stand, then another two in their store nearby. I ended up spending much more time than money, which is probably a good thing, because I could have bought it all!

I came home with bear paws kits for the boys and one skein of beautiful variegated yarn for a scarf for me. I know, I know, what am I doing buying variegated yarn?! I was so overwhelmed and overjoyed at how awesome everything was at Morehouse Merino that I kind of lost my way as a shopper. I can't really explain why I bought what I bought or why I bought so little. But now that I've seen the store and felt the yarns, I have a feeling I'll be visiting them online quite a bit.

yum.

So that's my Rhinebeck story: I came, I saw, I was tempted. But I figure, you don't have to buy a lot just because you were at a big festival. I enjoyed the festival, I love the few things I bought and that's enough for me. This time.

Over the river and through the woods to Rhinebeck we go! With hubby, two boys, knitbuddy Shannon and fiancé in tow.

smile for daddy!

After patronizing the fried dough stand about 100 ft from the entrance, we moseyed through the barns to see our fabulous furry and fleecy friends. I tried to restrain myself from snapping a picture of every beautiful animal I saw. I was tempted by the sweetest pair of fluffy-headed alpacas, who made the funniest little whining noise (visit this alpaca farm website to hear the alpaca grunts), but it was these two who forced me to break my animal photo moratorium.

who turned out the lights?

I'm a llama in a hat

Yes, the animals and the visitors were out in their finest woolens this weekend. Of all the incredible knitted sweaters and garments that I saw, my favorite was this kid's sweater. The juxtaposition of fine handknitting and large harvesting equipment just tickled me somehow.

a perfect ensemble with matching hat and camouflage pants

The boys' favorite thing at the festival was by far the big slide, which they did about thirty times.

up, up and "again?"

And the big boys? They drove out again on day two for the big event: punkin' chuckin'! Trebuchets, catapults and pumpkins - how can you not love that?

that little dot at the top is the pumpkin

Shannon
Norma
Leigh
Jenn
Jackie
Carolyn
Claudia
Silvia
Cari
Stephanie
Deb
Kim
Cindy
Kerstin

If you haven't already, you've got to read about their Rhinebeck projects, plans, and purchases. Amazing!

We are having beautiful fall weather up here in New England. If it doesn't get cold soon, we may end up visiting every farm in the area! This week we went to the agricultural fair at Topsfield, Mass. First thing we found were the alpacas. That's what happens when you let mommy lead the way!

I love their little fluffy heads

There were even yarns on display. Here's best in show. I almost snatched up some beautiful skeins of locally spun and dyed alpaca, but the boys couldn't wait that long. They dragged me out of the sale area and onward to see sheep, cows, tractors, flowers, rabbits - they even got to try milking a goat!

My favorite part was seeing the pumpkins at the fruits and vegetables house. They had NE's largest pumpkin - 1253 pounds! - and adorably funny decorated pumpkin displays done by local school and scout groups. This one of famous presidents was a riot!

pumpkin kerry for president!

Then we rode rides. Lots of rides.

At $1.75 per ride, per twin, it's a good thing I didn't buy any yarn!

Now that we've tackled the Topsfield fair, I'd say we're more than ready for Rhinebeck next weekend. See you there!

What a great trip! I had a wonderful visit with my mother and was also able to meet up with fellow knit-bloggers Jenn, of nipperknits, Elisabeth, of Curls and Purls NYC, and Jackie, of Jackie Blue. Check out their blogs for pics of all of us together - and look for a cameo by my mom! I just can't say enough good things about these three NYC knitters. Jenn is the cutest little thing you ever saw. It was real pleasure hanging out with her, talking yarn and politics and stuff (we didn't even get to discuss our shared crush on Ron Weasley!). Mom and I even followed her after our yarn shopping adventure over to the Swatch store where she works to buy a few watches! Elisabeth was the best guide one could ever find to the fabulous world of yummy yarns and snacks that is downtown Manhattan. And such a friendly and fabulous woman herself. I'm never shopping in NYC again without her! And Jackie, whose blog was one of the first I ever read and whose projects I've long admired, was just as fun and hip as her blog would lead you to imagine. She looked so stylish in her new Phil' Ruban tank and Phil' Eponge sweater and her current Rowan project is another to-die-for knit. She's a real New York gal too. So cool sitting in KnitNY, knitting with New Yorkers. I felt so at home! Thanks, girls!

So, wanna see where we went?

the obligatory purl shot

First was Purl Soho. I loved it! Such incredible yarns, a whole table full of beautiful swatches to entice you, and a very friendly staff to boot. You can't beat that! While my mom and I shopped, the gals sat and knitted (shouldn't it be "sat and knat"?) at the table in the middle of the store. It was a really comfortable atmosphere. I love it when a yarn store welcomes people to knit and browse, even if not everyone is shopping. The other gals have much better pics of us sitting at the table in Purl, but I've got a close-up of the cute little doggie that slept on the table while we were knitting. I left the Vintage Knits book in there for scale. That dog was so tiny and so adorable in its little Polo shirt! If it weren't for hunger pangs, I could have stayed there all day with the dog, the girls, the yarn....

purl makes me happy

After a fabulous lunch at Once upon a Tart, the gang moseyed on over to Downtown Yarns.

is that Calmer on sale?! - oh, this IS a good store

Another incredible wall of yarn, a giant table for sitting and knitting, and the nicest staff EVER. We loved it so much we even went back the next day for more. They recognized us of course, because we were in there forever on Saturday! There wasn't a cute little doggie, but just look at the adorable teddy bear they had on display, knitted out of some really cool rug yarn.

raise high the roofbeam knitters

One piece of advice for when you go to this store: Don't forget to look up! The room might not be that big, but there's yarn and amazing display items all the way to the gloriously high ceilings. I still don't think we managed to see everything in there! We would have kept looking, but hunger got the best of us again and we finished off the last day by having another yummy lunch. This time at nearby Benny's Burritos. I couldn't resist the name. That's how mothers are, you know.

So what did I buy? Tune in tomorrow for the shopping bags....

Just got back from a quick fiber-filled day trip down to NYC! Sandy (above), Kerstin, I, Leigh, and Carrie and Cindy all decided to meet up in the big city to see how many yarn stores we could hit in 5 hours. We ran into some unfortunate summer/sudden store closings, but still managed to see several shops. I finally got to see The Yarn Co. We didn't spend much time in the store, but I couldn't leave without these neat retro buttons for a future project for the boys. The coolest place we visited had to be Habu, where they had hundreds of amazing yarns made from all sorts of fibers and materials hanging on display in a teeny-tiny hallway.

Carrie and I both fell in love with this beautiful cotton in red. I bought enough to make one of these asian-inspired tanks from Rebecca #26.

After all the shopping we even squeezed in a little knitting and giggling time in a midtown deli.

Thanks gals, for such a fun day! Next time I wanna try to stay longer and maybe meet up with some of my NYC knitbuds. I seem to have developed a little nyc knitting habit - hee hee.

Pop quiz. You're a certifiable yarn junkie and you've got five hours in New York City. Where do you go?

Well, I started at Knitting Hands in Brooklyn (website - info here). This is a great yarn store! Brooklyn knitters sure are lucky to have such an awesome LYS. The place was packed with customers (lots of new knitters looking for help with new projects) and the staff was very friendly. There's every yarn you could possibly want here - GGH, Colinette, Manos, Blue Sky Alpacas, Mission Falls, Plymouth Yarns, andandand.... There's even a large selection of the less expensive acrylic yarns (making up for the lack of strip mall craft stores in NYC I guess). And lots and lots of pattern support too - books, older pattern magazines and tons of individual patterns. Wowie! I got caught up in the patterns for a while and then almost got some Mission Falls cotton (such pretty colors!), but then I decided to contain my excitement. Didn't want to get carried away at the first store. So I left empty-handed. Of course my hands were quickly filled after stopping by Urban Monster, a hip baby gear store next door! Had to get something fun for the boys, you know.

Next up, I crossed the river and stopped at the Yarn Connection in midtown (website). What a cute store located up on the second floor with a huge window looking out to the street below. We were buzzed in and found an incredible selection and amount of yarn in a small room full of cubbyholes and baskets and bins. This place is like Rowan central! I could browse Rowan yarns all day long and could no doubt knit my way through all the Rowan mags with the selection they've got here! They also had more crochet stuff than I usually see, which inspired me to pick up a few things for my first real crochet projects.

Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Superchunky for a fun crochet scarf and Berroco Suede for a crocheted bag. Both in blue. What else?!

I had hoped to make it to Purl Soho (website), but the next store was so great that I never made it. That's right, I spent the final two hours of my knit-trip at Knit NY (website)! Can you imagine anything better than a store with all of this and yummy baked goods too?

They've got one ball of each yarn (in every color) in its own tiny cubbyhole out on the wall for you to admire and touch. It's such a cool way to display the yarns. It's practical and beautiful. And you get to sit right in the middle of everything and knit. Check out the cool transparent stools full of colorful yarnballs. This place rocks! Two hours, a yummy doughnut, 20 balls of yarn, two books and one t-shirt later and I was done. Just enough time to grab a slice of pizza and hit old Broadway.

I love New York!

I get to make a day trip to NYC for a little mommy rest and relaxation. Hubby's treating me to a day of babysitting (it's only my second overnight trip ever away from the boys and the first was over a year ago) and mom is treating me to a Broadway play! If I catch an early train, I should even have enough time to visit a yarn store (or two if they're near each other). Okay folks, I need the 411 on the best place to go! I'll be arriving in Manhattan, but Brooklyn is also doable. Most important is that I'd prefer to be able to do a little shopping, so no ultra-exclusive, high-priced, luxury-fiber only stores, thanks. Just lead me to the NYC source for anything Rowan, Debbie Bliss, Karabella, GGH, Brown Sheep, Berroco, Noro, Manos, Vittadini, or Dale, give me a little NY atmosphere and I'll be a happy knitter on vacation!

Yesterday, I trudged out in the snow and sleet to visit a new yarn shop in my area, Circles. Best selling-point? A kids' play area and a Friday knitting circle... "kids welcome". Okay, you don't have to tell me twice! The playroom got four thumbs up from my boys. There's a nice separate space with couches for comfy knitting (with a view to the playroom) and nestled in-between is a very pleasant little store with some wonderful specialty yarns from small manufacturers along with other high-end yarns from names like Manos, Jaeger, Mountain Colors, and Karabella. Oooh, she had the most wonderful brushed alpaca from Karabella! You must go to the Karabella website right now, check it out under Yarns - B and then see the pattern they have for it, Patterns - Brushed Alpaca. Too die for fabulous! I didn't get anything yet though. I'll have to plan for something special before I can go too wild in this store!

But I did buy some yarn before the day was out. I went to the opposite end of the spectrum, A.C. Moore, and picked up the Lion Brand Homespun called for in the No-Sweat Pants pattern in the newest Interweave Knits. (See a pic here and hey, I'm up for a pant-along if anyone's interested!)

So, is it okay to bring my $3.88 Homespun to knit at the fancy yarn store knitting group?

Look ma, crazy ice fishers. What on earth would possess people to get up early on a Saturday morning and go out into the frigid cold that is Maine in January?! Oh yeah, yarn. Our little knitbloggers excursion to Halcyon was a blast! These gals are so much fun.

Booty shot! (Made you click!) I couldn't resist the Peace Fleece wool in beautiful Chickie Masala yellow. And I figured it was about time I picked up Montse Stanley's Knitter's Handbook. After Halcyon, Melissa took us to Grace Robinson & Co. in Freeport (the mecca of Rowan yarns!), where I bought the lovely blue Jaeger Baby Merino to make myself some gloves. I know this yarn wears very well, since I used for one of my boys' baby blankets and it's never pilled. I'd only ever seen it in baby variegated shades though, never in solid colors. In fact, I'd never seen so many Rowan, Jaeger, Vittadini, or Colinette yarns in so many colors in one store before. We only had 15 minutes to shop before closing time. This is my excuse for bringing home so little yarn from this fabulous store. I will be making a pilgrimage back to this place. SOON!

And if that weren't enough excitement, on Sunday the Knit 1, Purl 2 Stash Box made it to Knitsmiths. Becky brought it in and Johanna, Dava and I did a group swap all at once. I picked up a ball each of Cascade Fixation, Rowanspun Chunky, and Debbie Bliss Cotton DK. The last was a great find, as I was exactly one ball short for a sweater I'm hoping to knit for the boys in the spring. My LYS didn't have enough in one color when I bought the yarn last year, but I figured I'd come across another ball sometime. Thanks to the yarn fairy who put it in there! Dava pulled a skein of Gusto out of the box, started knitting, and finished the hat by the end of knitting group.

Yarnheads rule!

I promised you a story of my knitting adventure. Well, I'm not that adventurous, so I hope you weren't expecting too much! Our Knitsmiths founder, Dava, has organized field trips for us to go to some of the not so local yarn stores in the Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island area and this weekend we went to Webs ("America's yarn store!"). Now I know why so many people in this area make a pilgrimage to Webs once a year. What a great shop! I loved browsing through their books and patterns, including older issues of Vogue Knitting and Interweave Knits (had to pick me up one of these) and some older hard to find patterns, like this one, which I've wanted to get for a long time. The great thing about Webs is the yarn selection (oh, and the discounts!). I missed my Rowan yarns, but they have so many other wonderful yarns on display in the store and a whole open warehouse of coned yarn. I'm a little intimidated by coned yarn, having never worked with it, but I decided to give some fine gauge shetland a try for a Norwegian fair-isle sweater I've been longing to make.

I'm looking forward to swatching it to see how it knits up! Another Knitsmith, Johanna, is just starting her first fair-isle (progress pics to come!) and has reminded me how much I enjoyed knitting the Dale bug sweater. This means I'll probably be picking up the ladybug sweater soon to finish it and get myself psyched up to make this sweater for myself.

Speaking of the Knitsmiths, we had a great group yesterday, with two Smooches (Gina and Kerstin) and yet another area knitblogger, Claudia, who was knitting a tank in the most wonderful ribbon yarn (check it out on her blog!). Ribbon yarn was certainly the theme of the day, with no less than six knitters working with ribbon.

I was, of course, working on my white smooch tee. Not very adventurous, see!

Welcome back to the fantastic fiber voyage in Boston! If you missed the bus yesterday, just jump back in time down the page and then meet us up here again.

Today we'll be out and about in my neck of woods: the Boston 'burbs. We'll start in the town that I call home, beautiful Brookline, Mass. Again, I've found some photos on the web for those of you who like to look out the window during the trip. Many of the links will take you to pictures from the town of Brookline's photo pages, which you can check out here.

Brookline is a great old community just southwest of Boston proper. It's the birthplace of John F. Kennedy and Conan O'Brien among others. Brookline is also home to my local yarn store a good yarn. It's just a few blocks away from my place, so let's stroll on over, okay?

A Good Yarn is right in the heart of Brookline Village and is simply the loveliest yarn store I ever been in. It's large enough to hold loads of wonderful yarns, display countless beautiful sample garments and stock lots of patterns and books, but it's cozy, as a knitting shop should be. The large front and side windows let us peer in to all the knitty goodness from the street. As we enter, we are greeted by Vicky, the shop owner's little doggie, who is a sweetheart and divides her time between schmoozing with the customers and nibbling on a yarn label here and there. There are floor to ceiling cubbyholes filled with wool on the right and an entire corner of the store with cotton on the left. In the center, beautiful wooden chests are overflowing with chunky and baby wools. In the back there's an awesome selection of novelty yarns for those of you who like your knits fancy. And by the register is my favorite, a whole wall of needles and notions. I just can't leave this store without buying something, so let me gather up my purchases and let's hop back on the bus.

Since this is a virtual tour bus, we can magically pop in at my Sunday knitting group, the Knitsmiths, today. It's just a 5 minute drive from Brookline Village to Coolidge Corner, another little town center in Brookline. Coolidge Corner is home to the old Coolidge moviehouse and the greatest independent bookstore ever, the Brookline Booksmith. The Booksmith hosts our little group of knitters every Sunday in their events room. Let's grab something to drink from Starbucks or Peet's next door and make our way down the stairs to knit a few rows with them. Hello, ladies!

If we jump back on the bus, we can make one last stop on our tour. I've saved the best for last, folks, so get excited. We'll be driving out about 20 miles to Lexington and my absolute favorite knitting store, Wild & Wooly. Located right across from the Lexington Battle Green where the American Revolutionary War began in 1775, Wild & Wooly is a wonderful shop with wonderful yarns and a wonderful staff (their "knitting doctor" is Survivor Africa winner Ethan Zohn's mother!).

At Wild & Wooly you are greeted by the friendly staff and (I'm always a sucker for this) a large board with photos of customers and their projects. If you look closely, you might see a picture of my boys! Baby wool and patterns are in the long room to the right. You've never seen so many magazines and catalogs with baby patterns! There's a large display of Dale baby books and finished sweaters, which always makes me wish I started learning fair-isle earlier. To our left is another long room with an entire bookcase of Jamieson & Smith shetland wool in every fabulous color imaginable. And across from that a wall of Manos, Manos, Manos, exquisite Noro yarns and other luxury fibers too amazing to believe. After the HUGE book section (I buy all my books here. They have everything!) there's another floor to ceiling bookcase. This one is stocked with Rowan, Jaeger, Debbie Bliss and Jo Sharp wools. Oh and there's more downstairs! Can I offer you something in cotton, maybe? Among other yarns from Regia, GGH, Marks & Kattens, etc., etc., there's a veritable rainbow of boxes filled with Tahki Cotton Classic. If you come during the one of the semi-annual clearance sales, you'll also find bags and bags and bags of discounted yarn down here and the most helpful knitting store employee ever, who'll calculate for you what you can make with the quantity of yarn in any given bag. I love this store!

Well, this is where our tour ends (because I'm staying here!!). If you're interested in more fiber sites in the Boston area, the bus driver recommends an outing to Lowell, where you can visit the American Textile Museum and the Classic Elite factory store. Or perhaps you might enjoy a trip down to the Providence area, where you can visit two more excellent stores: A Stitch Above and Sakonnet Purls.

What fun it's been riding around with you all and showing you my knitting haunts. I hope you've enjoyed it. Be sure to catch the bus as the fantastic fiber voyage continues with Jayme's Tangible Geometry in Santa Barbara.

We're on a fantastic fiber voyage cooked up by Kristi of the domestic sphere and what fun it's been so far! I'm glad you all have managed to find your way here, despite our group of travellers having broken up for a few weeks there. The bus has completed its Atlantic crossing (from Kerrie's tour in London) and is ready to make a few knitty stops in the Boston area. This should be a two-day tour, so I hope you packed enough!

Setting the scene
Today the bus will be stopping in downtown Boston and Cambridge. I've found some lovely photos out in the web just in case you want to look out the bus window. Most of the links here (like the one above) will take you to photographs taken by Cris Pedregal Martin. You can check out all of his Boston pics directly here if you like.

We'll start our voyage right downtown on the Boston Common, one of the oldest public parks in the country. The Common is beautiful this time of year. We can see Boston's official Christmas tree (donated every year to the city by the lovely folks in Nova Scotia as thanks for Boston's relief effort following the Halifax Explosion in 1917). And a bit further we can see the artists preparing the ice sculptures for Boston's First Night celebration.

We make our way towards the theater district to our first knitty stop of the day: Windsor Button. This place is legendary (and I'm ashamed to admit that I've never actually been inside!). Certainly, if you ever need a button, this is the place to go, but I hear that they also have a good selection of supplies for all kinds of needlework, including knitting. Let's run inside, get warm and take a peek!

Cambridge bound
We should be able to pop into the subway right around the corner. The "T" as we like to call it was the first subway system in North America, dating back to 1897. We're on our way across the Charles River to Cambridge, home to M.I.T., Harvard and some great knit-spots. Let's ride out to Harvard Square first. If you like, you can take a quick tour of Harvard University or visit some shops and then we'll get right down to the the knitty gritty.

Here in the middle of Harvard Square we can visit Woolcott & Co., an absolute must for knitters north of the city. It's quite a small shop but it's chock full o' great stuff. As we go through the door we can look at all the photos of customers and their projects along the wall on our right. On our left is a great collection of books, from Alice Starmore to Elizabeth Zimmerman and anything else you've ever heard of. They have rows and rows of luxury yarns all around to whet your appetite. And as long as you don't have to have any contact with any of the staff, you could really enjoy yourself here. I'll wait out by the bus though!

It's getting late, so we should move along to our last stop for the day. Just a couple miles away in Porter Square, we can visit Mind's Eye Yarns, a wonderful little shop for knitters and spinners. In addition to selling yarn, spinning fibers, spinning wheels and supplies, Lucy also hosts weekly knitting and spinning groups in her homey store. Check out the pictures that Amy (of knitting with bitter-girl) took of the place!

Wow, what a great day! Be sure to come back to catch the bus tomorrow for the second part of our tour: my neck of the woods & beyond.