And that means yarn stories…yarns=stories. Get it? So, I now have an instagram account that I have begun using to share more photos than in the posts as well as yarn photos not related at all to any post (at least yet). And as I complete projects down the road that use the yarns I have blogged about, I will post them to Instagram so you can see what these beautiful skeins have become. I’m hoping you’ll enjoy this as well as reading the stories here. Â
And because no day is perfect without a bit of purple in it…here’s yours for the day!
Step back to August. Remember me talking about the DFW Yarn Crawl? The first weekend of the crawl I was sola (I know, that looks incorrect in english but it is a spanish word and I am female, so there ya go) in my pursuit of yarn. I spent an afternoon visiting the shops closest to home. The last and most distant destination was Holley’s Yarn Shoppe where I met Abby from Twisted Owl Fiber Studio, located in Longview, Texas. I arrived at the store with only about 5 minutes to closing…I almost didn’t go since I didn’t think I’d make it but then I decided that, surely there would be a hoard of people there. And, well, not so many people and the folks looked like they were really ready for a cocktail. Abby was packing up and here I came…I so wanted to dive into the bins of yarn.
Instead, I posed the questions I ask a-lot, which are: “Which of your yarns is your favorite right now? Which of the yarns you have with you are one of a kind? Which yarn will I not be able to get after you leave today?” The last is because I knew Holley’s carried some of her yarns throughout the year.
And this is the yarn with which she sent me home: Show Off: If I want exposure, I’ll get my tits out. Â Hmmm. I knew there had to be a story there and indeed there was. Kind of like the yarn equivalent to Top Chef but without the whole getting kicked off the island thing. And, I know, I’m mixing my references but it’s a tv thing and I don’t watch tv so it’s a miracle I even know these things exist. Anyway, I digress.
Abby said that one of her good yarn dyeing buddies made this super awesome batch of yarn. She, Abby, was really taken with the colors and how they all played out and asked her friend about the specifics. Said friend didn’t want to give it up but Abby said she thought she could figure it out on her own and this is the result. Not wanting to rain on her friends parade, she didn’t dye but the one skein. And now it’s mine! Of course I needed something to go with it and also took home a corally color.Â
That was great but I have a thing about even numbers and that only gave me two skeins to work with for a project, yet to be determined at that point. So, in October during the Hill Country crawl, I looked for a third color from Abby. No luck. And then. My in-laws (yes, we really do love each other) were in town and we went to Fort Worth to see the exhibit at the Kimbell. We arrived only to find out the museum didn’t open until noon on Fridays…my fault, but really, why would they do that on Friday? So, Google gave me the good news that there was a yarn shop within walking distance. HOW FORTUNATE 🙂
Emily went with me and Jim went with Tom to the Modern for an hour. And, here’s the reason I’m telling you this: I found my third Twisted Owl color at West 7th Wool. And it’s purple (I don’t know why I fight it, I’m so much happier when purple is involved). Yay! I feel so much better now.
And now I do have an idea of what to make with this fun yarn. It may be more challenging than it usually is since the pattern only seems to be available in German. Hmmmmmmm. I can figure it out, I’m sure. I have a dictionary.
I hope everyone has had a wonderful food and family day this Thanksgiving. I am thankful for so many things.Â
They are the cutest beasties. And the yarn made from their fleece is soooo soft. And warm. Did I mention that they are cute?! One of our stops on the DFW yarn crawl last summer was Trinity Ridge Alpacas. The folks were so friendly and turns out it’s a six degree thing ’cause Janet is a nurse and worked at one of the hospitals my Tom frequents. Anyway, we weren’t able to meet up with any beasties while there but we did have fun asking the Hancocks about their experience as alpaca tenders. Sounds like it’s a Lay’s potato chip thing…you can’t stop at just one.
Just shorn, this gal used to be one of our neighbors in the Hill Country
I have yarn that contains alpaca from other people and places. I’ve noticed it isn’t as itchy on me as merino is. And, as I started reading about alpacas, I learned the fibers hold more warmth than wool. Alpaca fibers are hollow so more air gets trapped than in wool where the fibers have only pockets of trapped air. One reason Alpaca fibers can be less itchy is because there isn’t any lanolin in them. Wool has that. If you see wool yarn that says it is “super wash” that means it has been processed to remove the lanolin. So, less itchy but the process to remove it may involve chemicals. Also, itchiness can be caused by bigger fibers…microns, my friends, are important as well. The diameter of the fibers are measured in microns (1 micron=1 millionth of a meter). The smaller the diameter, the smoother the fiber.
The yarn I brought home from Trinity Ridge is tagged with the names of the the alpacas whose fleece contributed to the skeins. Janet told me that she has customers who ask specifically for fibre from different alpacas, partly because the coloring is so different on each animal. Mine came from Angel, Mattissa and Pharaoh.
Alpacas are a relative of the llama and of the camel. They have been bred to be used primarily for their fleece while llamas have been bred to be guard and pack animals. They are around 3 ft tall at the shoulder and between 120-180 pounds. Llamas are much bigger and bulkier. Since the alpacas aren’t fighters, they need guard animals to keep them safe from predators. You may see llamas included in the alpaca herd to be used for this purpose.
Tom’s been saying for many years that if he can’t have a pony, he wants a llama….if we were at our ranchette (less than 10 acres so it doesn’t really qualify as a ranch) in the Hill Country more (read permanently) and if we had alpacas that needed protecting, maybe, just maybe he could have that llama.  And a pony too…..but that’s in another life 🙂
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.
Our first stop of the crawl
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.
Karla’s pic of her beer flight at the brewery
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.
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 yarn and it’s art that came home with me
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).
Tina as we enter our last stop of the crawl. Still smiling!
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.
I must post this before I take part in the Hill Country Yarn Crawl. It has been going on since the 5th but I have been waiting for Tina, my yarn partner-in-mischief to join me. We have a plan that should take us to 14 of the 18 yarn shops. Did I mention we’ll be doing most of that in two days? It is an ambitious plan. We shall see how distracted we get. And sandwiched in there somewhere is a stop by Liberty Hill where our friend Karla is building a house. Hmmmm.
My quest on this crawl is to find yarns for three patterns I have printed out to take with and to fill in a couple more where I need one more skein of a different color. I have spent several hours today searching for patterns to assign to part of my stash. I now have six more projects bagged and tagged. And that gives me permission to buy more yarn. Yay!
This is why I always have multiple projects in progress. And in the event that I get snowed in…in Texas…I’ll have plenty to keep me occupied. Whoop!
The DFW yarn crawl happened to me in August. My cohort was out of town for the beginning of it so I stayed pretty close to home for the first weekend. The following weekend we headed north just a ways to McKinney and were able to hit the local store there (McKinney Knittery) and also a yarn convergence inside Tupps brewery. What could be better? I can always go with: “The beer made me buy it”. Works, don’t you think?
My plan was this: 1. Go armed with a few patterns for which I wanted to find yarn. 2. If I found yarn I simply must buy, only buy worsted weight since fingering makes up far too much of my stash. Sounds like a good plan, yes? I went with four patterns.
We stopped first at the Knittery. Pattern yarn found. Check. Worsted weight. Check. Whew!
Tenacious, Magical, Revive and Audacious
Then on to the brewery. And that’s where the plan started to falter. Well ok, actually got totally abandoned. At the first booth. But the yarns. Oh. My. So just take a look at this picture. Fingering. All four skeins. But wow, the colors; all four are merino super wash and soooo very soft.
This next pic is of the display table.
Noti Yarns is a one woman business. She hand paints her yarn. This is one of the woman I mentioned in an earlier post who got started doing this because she couldn’t find what she wanted. In her case, she was wanting to combine variegated with solids and couldn’t find matching colors in the palette she had chosen. And it happened more than once. So, she embarked on the journey that has led her to hand painting these fabulous color combinations. And I love the names she has chosen for her yarns. I could say that might sound like buying the wine for the label on the bottle but with that you never know what’s inside. With yarn it just adds charm.
I chatted with several other wonderful people. The next couple of posts will be devoted to them.
When I began my crochet adventure, I used only very inexpensive yarns so that I could learn the stitches, play with patterns, and take online classes without making a huge investment. Because, well, I wasn’t sure if I would stick with it or if this initial fascination was just overactive curiosity looking for a distraction. So, one hook, four balls of cotton yarn, a darning needle, and a pair of scissors.
Fast forward to today….multiple hooks in just about every size, double ended hooks, tunisian hooks, interchangeable hooks, lots of stitch markers, patterns saved in multiple files, on Ravelry, even printed ones in books, binders and project bags. And the yarn…more than I should have…and it keeps accumulating. Almost like the weeds in my garden but nicer.
I truly am crocheting as fast as my hands and aging body parts will let me  but I seem to be stashing more than I can use in a timely fashion. Does that sound familiar to anyone?!
But I digress.
I have now a growing collection of yarns from my travels and from local shops and events. My husband has become accustomed to finding a comfy chair to sit in while I wander through the local yarn store, whether in Spain or Reykjavik. He even tried to find yak yarn for me when he was hiking in Bhutan.
My yarn stash keeps growing. It’s a bit like kudzu really, but in a good way. I am meeting some amazing people in the yarn world. So many people, when asked why they got in to dyeing fiber have told me that they couldn’t find the fiber in the colors they wanted. So they took a class to learn how to dye their own and that morphed into a business.
I enjoy talking to these folks and bringing home some of their yarn is a nice souvenir of our conversation and of the places I have traveled. That’s what I want to share on my blog. The stories. The yarn. The people.
