Sunday, July 29, 2012

A New York State of Yarn

This past week I had the great fortune to accompany my mom to New York City while she presented at a conference.  The day Mom spent in the hotel ballroom doing her thing, I spent walking the city taking pictures for work and finding nearby yarn stores to visit.  The first store I found was String on 65th where I stalked outside the front door for about 15 minutes waiting for them to open.  The store itself is on the second floor of a building and you ring a bell to get in but they have lots of pretty yarn in their windows and you know you are in the right place.  The store is fairly small and the selection is on the smaller size but I was really impressed with the number of samples available to try on and review.  I was even more impressed when I realized the woman standing in front of the mirror trying on samples was non other than Tracy Ullman!  OMG, I was excited.  I tried not to go all fan girl, and completely failed, but I stayed out of her face and as she was leaving she shook my hand and said it was nice to meet me.  I gushed a bit more and finally let go of her hand so she could get to the gym.  I would have asked for a picture but who wants to have their picture taken on the way to the gym even if she did look great!
As for the yarn, I found some really pretty Prism yarn in shades of brown and grey and I'm thinking to make a Windschief hat by Stephen West for my brother.  I only hope it's enough.
After lunch I headed off to the other side of Central Park to Knitty City.  I was really excited to get to Knitty City as I had heard a lot about it on several different podcasts over these last few months.  It sounded like everyone's favorite local yarn store for general community and I wanted to check it out.  The store is a small little place packed full of yarn and accessories.  I was impressed by the shear volume of stuff in a small space.  One whole wall is yarn and they have an impressive collection of books and notions bags.  In this store I found some beautiful Manos del Uruguay Maxima in some browns and pinks that is yummy.
I also had the luck to see madelinetosh for the first time in person.  I now understand what all of the fuss is about as this is a truly beautiful yarn.  I cannot wait to figure out what I am going to make with this to do it justice.
I thought those two stores were the end of my informal New York City yarn crawl but I ended up having amazing luck.  Mom and I were walking through Chinatown and Little Italy when we suddenly realized we were in Soho and the next thing you know I saw a sign for Purl Soho.  This was truly an OMG moment.  I opened the doors and I may have heard a sound somewhat angelic in nature.  The store itself is beautiful!!!  It has high tin ceilings with shelves lining the walls with yarns sorted by weight and color.  The visual display in this store is simply amazing.  The back of the store is given over to fabrics also arranged by color and also beautiful.  I loved the look of the store and the energy matched.  We were there on a Monday afternoon and the store was busy and the staff was friendly and available.  I know I'm getting repetitive but I loved this store!!!  As for the yarn, I was again mesmorized by the madelintosh yarns and walked around the store with several different colors in my hands.  In the end I picked the skein that yelled my name the loudest and I could not be more happy. 
Thus ended my New York yarn crawl and I can't wait to get back and see what else I can find.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

The Beauty of Repetition

There is a certain beauty in the simple repetition of form that I just love.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Potluck Handspun

I plied the singles of my Potluck roving and got pretty darn nice results. Overall I ended up with two skeins of different sized yarn. The first is a bulky thick and thin and about 80 yds. The second skein is much more consistent and somewhere between DK and worsted weight and about 240 yds. I've been looking for a good pattern to use the thinner yarn since I feel like it could turn into something nice.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Oscar's Summer Cut

I'm always amazed how small my little guy is when he doesn't have all his hair. He's so cute and just wants you to rub all over him after the cut. He's also super soft. The only downside is the other cats must hate the cut because it's usually about 3-4 days before the house is back to normal.