To sum up:
- 14 Yarn shops visited in 2 1/2 days
- 2 skeins of yarn purchased to complete the needed colors for 2 patterns
- 6 combinations of yarn acquired for patterns I brought with me
- 7 sets (pattern+yarn) purchased that were featured for the crawl at the yarn stores we visited
- 3 combinations of 3 skeins each purchased just because they are wonderful
And for those of you who have no idea what a skein is…drum roll please…I ended the weekend with 7.75 miles of new yarn in my stash! Yeee Haw.
This post will be a bit of a travel log. I want to share where we went and will link the shops to the posts so you can check them out. We didn’t make many photos; too busy shopping for yarn!
What fun we had and such good luck on the weather. We were able to visit all but one of the shops on our initial list. I even ended up visiting three of them twice sort of by accident. Alas, it does not appear that we won any prizes for our efforts…and yes, that was a possibility. Oh well. Next year!
Thursday – Day 1 visits:
- The Knitting Cup (Georgetown) Brought home Chesire Cat in Black Pearl from Frabjous Fibers. So fun just to read the names they use. Have a pattern picked out that should be quite challenging. At least it looks that way. It’s only available in German…
- A Sheep at the Wheel (Georgetown) They carry the Noti yarn that I fell in love with during the Dallas crawl. I needed one more skein for a project and was able to check that off my list while there. Yay!
- Nan’s Needleworks (Marble Falls) This was actually my first stop since I went by there on my way down from Dallas (the week before, on the first day of the crawl) to pick up our passports and swag bags. Was afraid they’d run out of the bags if I waited for Tina to come down the next weekend.
Tina met Karla and I at Karla’s build site in Liberty Hill. The first time I visited, it was only a concrete pad. Now the framing is complete and the roof mostly done. Yay!
Afterwards, Tina and I had a yummy lunch in Georgetown at Blue Corn Harvest bar and grill. Stumbled upon it really. We were looking for a parking spot near the first of our yarn shops and ended up right in front of the restaurant. ‘Twas best really that we didn’t start shopping on empty stomachs.
Here we go! Notice the empty bag she is holding. We brought holding bags to transfer our acquisitions into after leaving each store. That way there was always room for more! Each shop had some of the same big names of yarn but most importantly they each offered yarns from different small dyers and spinners. Some from the Texas area and some from other parts of the country.
Friday – Day 2 visits:
- Ply! Yarn (Wimberly) Opened early for the crawl. Lovely space. New owner this year. Â
- Vineyard Marketplace (San Marcos) Soo many things to look at. Home to Handspun Hope yarns from Rwanda. We ended up buying gifts for ourselves and others that had nothing to do with yarn.
- Hill Country Weavers (Austin) A labyrinth of yarns! Easy to lose oneself here for a good bit of time
- Gauge (Austin) Very nice folks, gave us a good back road to avoid the traffic. I’ve just started the project they featured during the crawl (see point 4 at the beginning of post).
- The Sated Sheep (Dripping Springs) Soo many small dyers represented here. Loved to see them all and their website has lots of information if you forget the story about what you took home.
Our drive from Fredericksburg to Wimberly took us on scenic country roads. Great way to start the day. Ply! is located just next to the main shopping square. Next we went to San Marcos and the Vineyard Marketplace. They were a sponsor for the event, so we didn’t get a spiffy button to add to our bag; even better, they gave us a needle/hook envelope as our door prize (more on them in the next post). From there we visited the two places in Austin, broke for lunch in between those two and headed to Dripping Springs. All told we drove (well, Tina drove and I navigated) about 200 miles on Friday. And worked around the ACL (Austin City Limits music festival) traffic.
We ended the day with Karla at Altstadt, the new brewery that just opened outside of Fredericksburg. We were even able to sit outside…no rain and coolish temps.
Saturday – Day 3 visits:
- Yarnivore (San Antonio) The yarn I took home with me here was dyed by a young lady who is a visual artist. The colors of the yarns she dyes are taken from her artworks. The painting is shown on the label of the yarn that was inspired by it and you can buy cards and prints of the art as well.
- Un-raveled (San Antonio) I’m looking forward to working the shawl pattern using the yarn they were featuring.
- The Yarn Barn (San Antonio) They featured Lone Star Arts for the crawl. Some of my favorite yarn.
- Inskein (San Antonio) I brought home their featured project as well. The designer for this, Shannon Sanchez, has more on Ravelry that look fun to work, including some Star Trek inspired patterns.
- The Loom Room (Comfort) All kinds of weaving looms and supplies. Fascinating. And the art and craft items in front fun to browse through. Need to remember this for gift giving occasions.
- The Tinsmith’s Wife (Comfort)
Our adventure on Saturday didn’t require as much drive time (160 miles). We opted to visit the 4 stores in San Antonio and the two in Comfort. Wise decision as we would have run out of time if we had tried to go further east. The only rain that found us was during our lunch break.
The artist and dyer I mentioned above is The Knitting Artist. Her website shows her paintings, installations and yarn sculptures but not her yarn. I brought home her yarn inspired by her painting “Sleeping Moon Ice” along with a card showing the work.
The Loom Room in Comfort sits in the back of Comfort Crockery a store that has a great collection of artists’ wares. Even for those who aren’t weavers there were interesting things. I brought home a kit to make cute little dryer balls. They do have some yarn included in the weaving supplies but for the cornucopia of yarn/thread choices you really need to go across the street to the Tinsmith’s Wife. Huge. Several rooms. They have supplies for all kinds of needle and hook addicts (of the yarn persuasion).
We ended our crawl there, turned in our passports that we mostly remembered to get stamped at each store, petted the resident cat, filled our bags with the last of our crawl purchases and went around the corner to celebrate a successful and fun weekend at Hill Country Distillers. A cool drink and some spirits to take home with us for later.
Stay tuned for more!