New Hampshire Yarn Shopping!

Sheesh! Sorry, I’ve been an absent blogger. Stampede ended up occupying my knitting time this last week- and I was a busy girl, donning my cowboy boots and doing my part to enjoy a few corporate parties. Sadly, donning my cowboy boots meant neglecting my knitting and neglecting it even longer because we jetted off to New Hampshire to take in a wedding over the weekend. Not such a productive week on the knitting front.

On the other hand the YARN SHOPPING was divine.

Here’s the thing: New England and area is a yarn shop Mecca. If you wanted to travel around and visit stictly yarn shops? I'd tell you to look in to New England and skip everywhere else. They are EVERYWHERE. When we lived in Connecticut I was surrounded by truly awesome, large, gorgeous, fabulous, mind blowing yarn shops. (Yes those link to different shops that were close by and I'd visit frequently!) And don’t even get me started on NYC, and how often I’ve blown my vows “just to look, not buy” in Purl or School Products. Oi.

When the husband announced he was going to be golfing on Saturday morning, I immediately began mapping out yarn shops in the vicinity of Lake Winnipesaukee. 2 choices immediately popped up so I plugged them into the yahoo maps and away I went on Sat morning.

Patternworks was a dream- made even more euphoric by having a SALE while I was there. I always have the best intentions of taking pictures in the store, and then I get there and I totally chicken out. I chickend out again- but people, the store was lovely. Spacious, but not too big and crammed with lovely, lovely yarns. And the staff? Very sweet and helpful! When my eyes noticed this JoJoland Cashmere on SALE (400 yards for $18.99!)

I HAD to buy it. HAD TO. I’m pretty sure every knitter alive would disown me for leaving that kind of deal behind. Cheap Cashmere is the kind of things that only happens in fairy tales! (There are actually 2 skeins of this now, as this morning, back in Calgary, I called them and bought the last one so I had enough to make a shawl out of this.)

I also scored some lovely Regia Silk in "marine" (also on sale)- because Regia makes some perfect socks for the cold footed men in my life.

Patternworks is in a very charming building that also has a needlepoint shop and quilt store. (The nicest quilt store I have ever seen.) I was VERY greatful that I had not taken up quilting, because I would have spent EVERY. LAST. CENT. WE. HAVE. on fabric. Oh the fabrics there were so nice- they made me, a non-quilter, desperate to quilt! The selection was enough to make even the strongest willed crafter cry with joy!

After geeking out in the quilt shop and slinking around like I had stolen the cashmere (I didn’t MOM(s)- I swear I paid… it just felt like stealing with that deal!) I got back in my car and mosied on over to Lamb’s Ear’s yarns in Gilford, NH.

Lamb’s Ear is small but quaint. (That’s the unofficial motto of New England: “Small… but quaint!”) It was funny to go from MEGA selection at Patternworks, to teeny selection at Lamb's Ear. There was still some nice stuff there, but nothing I couldn’t get at home. (My unofficial yarn shopping rules- only stuff I can't get at home or on super deal.) I did, however, score some US 1 & 2 straight needles (I've had a very hard timing trying to find these) and a row counter which I was quite pleased about.

I did manage to make a little progress on the flight home on my long suffering purse sock- which really needs to be finished already!

Things should be relatively settled down now as far as my travel, which means there should be plenty of time to jump back into the knitting. There are lots of projects to look forward to in the next couple of months including; a finished Goodale sweater, 2 charity blankets I have here right now, my first toe up socks and maybe my first lace shawl. I'm hoping this summer is going to be rife with blog fodder and finished projects! Stay tuned!