Yarn Crawl v2010.1

We arrived home at 2am this morning from a wonderful trip to Boston. It was short and quick but there was still room for greatness.

Where to start? I guess the beginning would be good. We loaded up the van Wednesday afternoon for our trip. Our first yarny stop was in Lake Placid at my LYS. I'm working on a (secret, sorry folks, it's killing me not to be able to post about it yet too) project and knew I was going to need another ball of yarn. Sue was just back from Stitches South and was heading out the door so I didn't get to visit but a minute but it was still so nice to see her!

Back in the van I continued on my project. I had grabbed a 24" needle for it because my 40" was already occupied. It was working but after a few rounds my hand was so cramped it was ridiculous. Half way between Lake Placid and Saratoga Springs I had to put the project down because it hurt so bad. Queue the perfect excuse to stop at Common Thread, formerly known as Saratoga Needle Arts. I was really excited to see the new store! We found it with the help of Lola (the navigation in the van) and I barely waited for the van to stop moving before I jumped out and ran up to the store. To my horror, it was closed! I hung my head and got back in the van.

Bran, being the kind hubby he is, suggested that there must be another knit shop in the area. I pulled out the trusty CrackBerry and found the Stitchin' Post just a mile or so away. It was 4:45pm so we called before heading over to see if they were open and if they had the needle I needed. Bingo! Off we went. Not only did I find my needle, I also found these beauties:

From left to right we have Berroco Sox Metallic 1369, Kertzer On Your Toes 857, Fibra Natura Yummy 41354, Opal 2067, Opal 2105 (it's 805 in this photo), and Knit One Crochet Too Crock-O-Dye 746.

On Thursday, I finally got to meet Leslie! Leslie drove all the way to our hotel to pick the girls and I up for some yarn crawling. She was sweet enough to research yarn stores in the area and printed out directions for 4 that sounded quite amazing. Sounds great, right? Care to guess how many stores we visited? Zero. Care to guess why we didn't visit any of the stores? It's really quite simple. Leslie left me to navigate. Yes, we had Google directions. Yes, we had a map. Unfortunately, for me maps are about as handy as tits on a bull. My name is Kerry and I'm map-challenged. And let us not bring up the fact that I have navigation on the CrackBerry but didn't think of it until we were already lost. And by the time I finally did remember I had it? The battery was almost dead. And the charger was in the van. With Bran. 7 miles away. At an address unknown by me. Then there was the potty incident. Me, not one of the girls. Folks, you just can't buy memories like these. So we drove around in circles for some time before poor Leslie had to head home. She dumped my sorry, non-map-reading ass off and squealed the tires as the girls and I watched her speed out of the hotel parking lot. Ok, she didn't really leave us standing in a cloud of dust even though she probably should have. She was a real peach about the entire day and still insisted she had a lovely time even though there was no yarn fondling involved. Me? Best. Day. Ever!!! I got to spend time with an incredible lady who means a great deal to me. Hopefully she'll answer the phone next time we're in town.

Friday morning was spent packing up all of our crap and finding ways to kill time while waiting for Bran to get done class. With the help of Lola, I found Knit Purl. Very nice little shop with a great selection of yarns and needles. I may or may not have bought this:

40" 2.5mm Turbo for the new socks I intended to begin on the way home and some Regia 01805.

When Bran was finished class I patiently tagged along with he and the girls as they insisted they had to eat and shop before we started our trek home. You see, I was promised a stopover at Webs!!! We got there with just a little over a half hour of shopping time before they closed the store. OMG!!! If you've never been before you really should. It's as impressive as everyone says it is. Totally overwhelming too. And I wish I had actually taken time to make a list of yarns I wanted for specific projects I had in mind. I've heard that's a must and it truly is. I wish we had more time to browse because there were tons of yarns and needles I wanted to look at. And buy. I made it out with this little haul:

Starting at the top left and working around clockwise we have Galway 604, Cascade 220 Superwash 1919, Madelinetosh Prairie Baltic, Regia 1802, and a new Buddy Case in eggplant because Dexter ate my other one. Damn that dog and his teeth!

That's it. The end of the first yarn crawl of 2010. Not too shabby, eh?