My Yarn Tour of the Bay Area

I had a good night's sleep, only mildly disturbed by the felines, and a nice lazy morning of doing not much, but it counts toward cat maintenance, and are they ever playing up the attention-starved-ness. This afternoon, I've been Getting Things Done: the dishwasher has been run, the laundry is in progress, the suitcases are put away, the yarn is photographed and entered in Ravelry ... what, that isn't part of everyone's post-trip to-do list? Well, it was on mine, and it was done. In fact, I think I'm going to blog about my yarn tour of the Bay area separately from the rest of the trip, to have it in one place. After all, I bought yarn in four different stores, over three days: it's complicated, and I don't want it all spread through the posts about the trip itself. I'll throw you a cat picture at the end, whether you want to read through or skip to it.

The first store we went to, on our Friday wander around the Mission, was not a completely dedicated yarn store. It is both Serendipity and Princess Animal:

To the left:

And to the right:

They had other things on the Serendipity side, and I bet it's a lot of fun to look through, but I stuck with the yarn. I got this, local to the Bay area, merino/nylon sock from Out of Step Dyeworks:

My camera didn't do too well with capturing the richness of the purple, shading into black.

The next yarn stop, also on Friday, was actually just two short blocks from our wonderful guest house: ImagiKnit (pronounced "imagine it"). I took a picture of the sign before we went in:

This one, however, is such a dedicated yarn store that I was too overwhelmed inside to take photos. We went back the next day for that. See what I mean?

See the buttons on the left?

I love that display! In fact, I'd love the store to be my LYS. Alas, I don't want to live in San Francisco. I will have to be content with visits.

I got three skeins there.

First, another local, Tactile's Bolinas Sock, 100% blue faced leicester!

Next, for the sake of the animal, this skein in the colorway Orange Tabby.

No, really. It's also BFL, and not local, but it benefits animal rescue.

The color is somewhere between gold and orange, depending on the light, with a hint of darkness here and there.

Finally, another from Tactile, this one in Sierra Sock, which is merino. 

On Saturday, we stopped into Atelier Yarns.

Again, I managed not to get photos inside, and this one we did not go back to. It was nice, I swear! And a little came out with me. This lovely project bag from Lantern Moon:

And a skein of Mighty Sock from Abstract Fiber, which isn't quite local, but is from Oregon, not my usual stomping grounds. Half merino, half tencel.

The final stop on my personal yarn tour was over the Bay in Oakland, where we found A Verb for Keeping Warm. Fabulous!

Again with the not so much photos! But I do like this one, of their own yarns:

You don't get much more local than that! They also carry fabric, and there was a sewing class going on in a space on one side, very nice set-up.

And the yarn, you ask? Well, I had to get a skein of theirs, first. I chose Annapurna, which is merino with a bit of cashmere and nylon.

I was kind of on a golden kick this trip!

But don't worry, I didn't entirely forgo the blue.

This skein is the antithesis of local yarn.

Australia! I don't believe I've had Australian yarn before.

And that is "all" the yarn. I am so happy with it all, sigh.

Herewith, a picture of how standoffish Belmont was when my mother arrived.

I seem to have a people-social cat again. It's been a while.