We arrived at my friend Nicoal's apartment and decided that since the weather had gone from dreary and grey to bright and sunny, we would walk to Yarnia from the apartment. So we abandoned my car, and walked the 15 blocks or so to Yarnia. And arrived there 45 minutes before they opened. Whoops.
As we walked back to the car, we decided to go to plan B: drive down to Yarn Garden and shop there, and then drive back to Yarnia before stopping at Tao of Tea for lunch.
So that's what we did. It was hard to find a parking spot on Hawthorne, but we drove a few blocks away and squeezed in and went to fondle yarn.
Yarn Garden is a great little shop. It has several "rooms" plus a little cafe, and everything is stacked floor-to-ceiling with yarn, on shelves and on islands and on racks and in baskets. Nicoal was looking for some sock yarn to attempt her first pair of knit socks, and I was also looking for something in that weight to crochet a pair for my husband's Valentine's Day gift. I settled on two skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine in a charcoal color, and as I was checking the dye lots a skein in green whispered that it wanted to come home with me too. So of course I obliged it.
We spent some time in the sunny books and notions room as well, perusing their individual patterns and drooling over a book of motifs; and I found a Sweater Stone to take home and try. And finally, with my arms full (and nobody else's! Hmph!), we high-tailed it back to the car.
Next was Yarnia. I could have easily spent thrice as much time in there, but as we were on a timetable for meeting another friend for lunch, I hurried as best I could. Yarnia is a really neat place: just a small room with a big machine in one corner and shelves of cones of single strands of yarn. Yarnia is a make-your-own yarn shop; which is a little overwhelming for the first little bit as there are dozens of colors and lots of different fiber contents to choose from. I had to kind of walk around for a bit at first, just to see what there was and take it all in, and eventually I settled on my blend: bamboo in a pretty blue, some purple cotton, and a strand of chocolate brown wool. Lisa also chose a blend, of two shades of green with a bright magenta/pinky pop - very pretty, I'm excited to see what she makes with it!
When you decide on the blend you like, the shop owner figures out the yards-per-pound and calculates the cost, and then once you decide how much you want (which is difficult when you don't have a project in mind, like in my case) she threads your choices through her machine and winds a cone for you. My first try has yet to completely grow on me; I think it doesn't quite turn out the way that you think it's going to (or maybe that's just me). I like it, I'm just not ENAMORED of it.
And as you can see, it works up a little differently than the way it looks on the cone as well. I think if I were to do it again, I'd put one more strand of brown in order to make the blue not quite as overpowering. It was great fun, though, to dabble in color science. I got a pound, and I think it's telling me it'd like to be paired with another color and become a vest of some sort.
After lunch at Tao of Tea it was just about time to get going back home. But we still had 6 yarn shops left. So plan C was to stop by an unrelated store (Cost Plus) on our way home and save the rest of the yarn shops for another outing, as we both had spent quite enough money that day on yarn. I'm kind of glad we decided that, as I got home just in time to get ready for my concert AND we have plenty of options for our next trip north, which I hope will happen very soon!
And now I'm off to work on Valentine socks again.
