Yarn Crawl

It’s probably been four years since I actually went on a yarn crawl, as in visiting a bunch of yarn stores. This year was no different, but I did what I always do, I walked to my local yarn store to check things out.


As the neighborhood changes and grows, I’m wondering how long these old commercial buildings will stand. Still here now, so I’m enjoying them. This location has been a yarn store for almost 20 years. First Knit Cafe and now the Altered stitch. The present owner is looking to sell, so we’ll see….

Among my yarny friends, we call this the hand-dyed heaven store. There is no Plain Jane yarn, which makes shopping here a little difficult for me. But it does make it lovely for photography. Spinning is still very much a thing, so they have dyed fiber as well as finished yarn.

Every year the yarn crawl has a theme, honestly, I don’t know what the overarching theme is this year. Maybe travel? This store went with tropical Hawaiian which is perfect for their bright hand dyes.

What I have found in the last few years, is that there is less yarn and more cutesy decorations. I stopped buying a lot of yarn years ago. Recently I purged most of my good yarn, except for the linen. I have a sweater’s worth to one friend. I am teaching another friend to knit and I gave her some nice yarn as well. I have decided, no more yarn stash, I will buy for specific projects. Which is sort of what I’ve been doing for a while anyway.

So, we have tiny bear knitting.

… and huge knitting on very large needles. I counted 5 strands of very bulky yarn here.

Samples of projects are always good. I’m over socks with too much pattern on them. This is really really adorable, but no, not worth my time. Btw, they only have one sock, so I wonder if the knitter gave up after one.

Small sample of a yarn knit up. In this case, the size is fine, but with some hand-dyes, a swatch this small wouldn’t really show much.

As part of the yarn crawl, there was demonstration of dying wool yarn with Koo-lAid. Not bad results, that red is very deep and bright. It is also probably very fugitive and will either crock (release dye into water when immersed, or simply fade with time.

You start with damp yarn.

Since Kool-Aid already has citric acid in it, that is built in mordant. Mixing and dispersing colors.

There we go, ready for heat. In this case, 2 minutes in the microwave, let rest for 2 minutes, repeat, until the liquid runs clear. That means that all the dye has been absorbed. I am working on a shawl with the natural Merino wool I bought in Chile, I am considering dying the shawl when I’m done knitting. No, I won’t use Kool-Aid, I’ll look at Dharma Tradings website, find some good dye and then look at some You Tube tutorials.

Because its spring, I’m sharing flowers. These bright yellow ones grow on trees scattered around the valley. I don’t know the name, but they are big, bright balls of yellow happiness.

A zinnia can be such a pretty thing.

So I planted a Matilija poppy in my yard, I hope it’s a dwarf variety, otherwise, I’ll be blocking my dining room window….

Leah

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