Yarn Crawling, 2013 Edition

It's not been a perfect head day. The head was bothering me last night, and though I was able to sleep, I woke often, so it wasn't as restful as I would have liked. This morning it wasn't great, but but before noon it went down to the merest murmur, so I've been able to watch the Bruins (lose), get laundry done, make lasagna, knit a little. Not the most accomplishy day, but better than I thought it was going to be, this morning, so take what we can get.

I had a good time yesterday, yarn crawling with friends. I did have a slight headache when I woke up, but it came and went and never got too bad, so I was able to enjoy the day, fortunately. This year's bumper sticker from Coveted sums it up:

We started at Seed Stitch in Salem, the store that organizes the crawl, and a very nice place. Such a pleasant space, and such inventive displays!

 Buttons in an old chest:

 Yarn flowing out of a watering pot.

 Sheepy spring welcome by the door.

I was able to resist buying anything there, though it was a close thing. The dyer behind Toil and Trouble, the yarn I used for the Christmas shawls, was there with such a lot of her lovely yarns, very tempting. Then there was this colorful stuff, Funnies, which I was told is German, and sold in the US only at Seed Stitch.

Beautiful colors!

I was not at all tempted by this, though. I can't imagine knitting with it!

It's paper! How would it not rip and break with your every move? I don't get it.
From there, it was on to the great Coveted Yarn. The plain outside is such a contrast to Seed Stitch, which is lovely to look upon, but inside Coveted makes up for it, and I had a great time wandering around squeezing yarns. I also had a nice conversation about Doctor Who and yarn with the dyer behind Mad Colors Fiber Arts, who was there with her wondrous wares, and had to show me her Police Box blue colorway when she saw I was wearing my Bigger on the Inside shawl. Vibrant! It makes mine look rather sun-faded, though I still love it.

Much to my amazement, I was able to get out of Coveted without buying. Plenty of nice stuff, that goes without saying, but nothing I couldn't put down, which was my guiding principle.

I did come back to this more than once, though.

Mmm, soft.

And speaking of mmm, it was time for lunch, so off to Essex we went, for the usual deliciousness at Woodman's. So good! And happily for us, the sole new store on this year's crawl was around the corner from Woodman's. It just opened in January, and is called Hooked Knitting. Small, but I liked it! They are going to have a lot of classes, it seems, including a rug hooking class that one of my friends wants to go back for. And I found a skein that had to come home with me.

The pictures I got didn't get the color quite right. It's a coral pink, somewhere between these two photos.

 

And it's bamboo! I just couldn't stay away from it, which is the sign.

No, I don't know what it will be. Don't bother me with details.

The next stop was Village Stitchery in Topsfield, which had the cutest little scarf displayed:

Again, I enjoyed looking around but was able to leave with the same amount of money I had entered with. Our final stop was Butterfly Yarns in Wakefield, a nice store that is sadly closing. Don't you love this sign?

I had to take advantage of 25% off, and got two skeins of Cascade Eco Duo. I had two skeins in the stash already, from a gift certificate my cousin gave me for Christmas one year, and it's lovely and soft and now I can make something twice as big. Two:

 Plus two is four.

Sometime, I'll find a pattern that would suit 800 yards of aran-weight alpaca/merino, in a three-to-one brown-natural ratio.

I will, too. Knitting's like that, if you can be patient.