Category Archives: Yarn Stores

My Sister Was Here

My sister was visiting us and this is my excuse for the long silence.

We explored Toronto together, we went on a road trip that took us to Maine through Albany (to drop Sam at her boyfriend’s house on her way back to college) and to Quebec City on the way back to Toronto (my Joe is an expert in finding the longest way between any given two places,,,)

When Miriam arrived and saw my stash, my recently finished projects and the ones I am working on these days, she immediately felt the need to knit something too. She is not an avid knitted like me, she is doing many things, jewelry being her most serious thing these days. She decided she wants a light, small shawl and after I showed her how to start and do the increases for a basic triangle shawl, this is what she managed to finish while she was here:

Miriam Fast Shawl

Miriam's Quick Knit

She already started another scarf from her head, she is the creative spirit in our family, her head is full of great ideas in so many different areas, just amazing! (she is my one and only sister so I am allowed to brag about her, right?)

On our way to Maine we passed through New Hampshire and Joe spotted a sign on the road to The Fiber Studio, he asked if we want him to stop and we said yes,  so he turned around and we found a most delightful yarn shop that offers much more than yarn and patterns:

The Fiber Studio, Henniker, NH

The Fiber Studio, Henniker, NH

I have more photos of this lovely place but I wanted to show you what us sisters found in the shop:

Such a nice mix of things!

Such a nice mix of things!

Miriam found so many different things: yarn (of course) – she went for light cottony things that will fit the Israeli weather (I coudln’t resist the softness of the warm wools even when I lived in Arizona,,,), materials to make some kind of a scarf, I call it free form as I don’t know its official name, it involvs water soluble sheets (the Mokuba brown thing in the photo), all these ribbons and the fancy thread, you need to arrange them on the sheet and then sew it (god forbid, not my cup of tea,,,). She also found a lovely beaded scarf knitted with this colorful yarn that is unique to this shop (the two colorful cakes on both sides of the more muted cotton mix cake in the center) and the beautiful wooden tray for her bead work, oh and also some lovely button we forgot to add to the tray before taking this photo – she had to stop there because of space limitation on airplanes these days,,,,

You want to guess what I bought? Yes, you are right, just some boring yarn:

Are they nice together?

Are they nice together?

I bought the center one a few weeks ago in The Naked Sheep of Toronto (they had a lovely anniversary sale with 25% discount on any yarn for the whole month of August!) and then I saw in my Ravelry favorites that its the yarn for the Daybreak I decided I must have the first time I saw it.  I needed another color and couldn’t choose between these two so I had to buy them both don’t you agree?

Now, do you want to help me choose or should I use all three?

I wanted to show you the sock I very slowly knit these days (I have beautiful photos of it near the ocean in Maine – such a magnificent place!) but this post is already too long and I have to go so I will continue next time.

Nothing Too Important

This morning we took off in a different direction than our regular morning routes and about mid way Joe said: Do you need something from the grocery store, we are close enough to include it in this walk. So we did it. The second BAT/KAT trip this week, aren’t we good?

Now he is talking about walking to Sprouts, poor me! The Fry’s/Safeway junction we went to this morning is about 1.5 miles from home, Sprouts is about 3.5 according to Google Maps but we can make it shorter walking, we guess about 3.0 miles or so,,, in nice weather it is not too hard but they promise 3 digit temps here pretty soon, we will see.

After swatching the colorful yarn I showed here the other day, I think it is too fat for a small baby when knitted in garter stitch. This made me visit my stash. I found nice things. I think I will try a Mountain Colors Bearfoot yarn I found there. I bought 2 skeins in preparation to knit my first sock ever and the lady in the lovely shop Windsor Button, told me that maybe I should take 2 skeins to be on the safe side. I finished the socks with a little leftover from the first skein. I am not sure I have enough yarn though, I will know better when I finish the first BSJ soon.

I saw in my stash some lovely sock yarns, I will need to knit those soon. I saw a sweater worth of cotton that I intended to knit last summer. I found some lovely cotton that want to be knitted into something summery – who said the only place we can have fun with yarn are yarn stores or the internet?

Oh and about this Boston wonder – I stumbled upon it by accident walking in Boston while we went with Sam to a college tour in the Northeast in March 2006, so I can’t really tell you what I saw there. The only thing I remember is wondering between shelves full of yarns and finding more and more wonderful corners full of fiberly delights, just what a good yarnoholic looks for in a yarn store in a new city.