Knit One, Purr Too

Last minute stash

Since a number of us had all of this week off from work, we decided we ought to do another yarn crawl (it having been months since the last one). So eight of us met in Davis yesterday morning, consolidated cars, and we set off to our first destination, Filati's Fine Yarns, in Rocklin.

I have heard a few of the others talk about this store a number of times over the past few years, but it's kind of out of the way to get to. However, once we walked in, I realized just why everyone speaks of this store in glowing terms. For one thing, it's one of the largest yarn stores I've ever seen. But more importantly, the selection is amazing. As one of our group put it, there is always going to be something for everyone - no matter if you're into sparkley, fluffy scarf yarn, or hand-dyed sweater wool. And if this wasn't enough, there is an entire section in the back that was crammed full of yarn, all on sale.

I have been pondering the size of my stash and telling myself that I need to not buy any more yarn any time soon, and there are a few of us who have been discussing how we could work out our own version of Knit From Your Stash 2007 that will still let us do a bit of splurging for things like Stitches West (coming up in February) and the occasional yarn crawl. So as tempted as I was by all the gorgeous yarns that were piled high all around me, I confined myself to the sale section, and picked up four balls of this adorable baby yarn. I've three baby things I know I need to make in the next few months, and I am sure there will be more in the future, so this will definitely go to good use, especially when I found the perfect buttons to match.

After spending a few hours there, what with the oohing and aahing and the dithering over what to get and what to (regretfully) put back on the shelves, we decided it was lunchtime. So we tracked down the nearest Olive Garden, and ate salad and soup and breadsticks, and I cast on for Richard's knit birthday present (after the last two years, I think it has now become a tradition that I make him something silly for his birthday) and managed to get a few rows done in while waiting for the food to arrive.

After lunch, we moved on to our next destination, Babetta's Yarn and Gifts in Fair Oaks. This was a new store for all of us, so we had a wonderful time. And I was being very good and resisting the allure of all the gorgeous yarn until I walked down one aisle and saw a bin of laceweight, in which sat a skein of green wool and tencel blend that has just the amount of metallic sheen and was just the right color and I have been looking for the perfect yarn for my dragon shawl for some time now, and that one skein has 3100 yards (!!) - more than enough for a dragon shawl - so there was nothing to it, but it had to come home with me. And then someone in the group spied a box of silvery pastel yarns on sale, that are perfect for fingerless gloves (one skein makes one pair) and I thought about the fact that my litlte sister has a birthday coming up, and also I wouldn't mind a pair of fingerless gloves for myself, and into the basket dropped two balls of that. And then as I was rounding the last corner to explore I found an entire shelf of amazingly soft wool and acrylic blend yarn, with what looked to be the perfect color yellow, so I called my mom and had my dad help her get online to the manufacturer's website to make sure it was the color she wanted, and once we'd established that this would work, I then had to add ten balls of that to my basket, destined to become a sampler afghan for my mom. And after all of that, somehow the two little balls of Misty Alpaca laceweight that also 'fell' into my basket didn't seem like such a bad idea either.

By the time we were all done in the second store, some of the group was starting to tire, so we decided to call it a day and head back to Davis. My knitting mom and I headed off to Knitters Playground because we weren't quite ready to go home yet, and in between chatting and laughing and occasionally eating leftover holiday cookies, I managed to finish off Richard's birthday present before we decided it was time to go home.

Posted by Jenipurr at December 28, 2006 08:18 AM