Destination: Yarn

Up and down the I-5 Corridor in Western Washington, yarn store owners got together and set up the 2008 LYS Tour. Up there, that's Miss D from the comments to who posts as 'anonymous.' The picture was taken at Seattle Yarn.

So, I travelled with Miss D, Roseann & Marjorie - all of whom are blogless. We met at my house at 9:30. Our first stop was Renaissance Yarns in Kent. It was a beautiful store, there were brownie bites and bottled water. If you spent more than $25 you got the tour bag free.

My only goal while shopping was to purchase yarns not available at one of my truly local yarn stores. So while at Renaissance, I bought some Duet sock yarn in a very different for me colorway. I really like it. For some reason I'm very attracted to yellows and golds lately. After Renaissance, we headed to The Knittery and then onto The Yarn Stash (neither of whom have an internet presence.) I didn't purchase anything at either shop, just got my stamp, picked up the one skein pattern and headed up the road.

After that we went to So Much Yarn in Seattle. This was another very nice shop. I was wanting some Dream in Color Smooshy for a project I have in mind, but couldn't pull the trigger on the purchase. If I had realized that the project yarn was on sale - I might have gone ahead - but oh well. We also had lunch while we were downtown. Back into the car, next stop - Bad Woman Yarn, then the weaving works where I bought two skeins of Louet gems in a green and white tweedy colorway. It's a very soft mint green.

After that it was Acorn Street, Let It Rain, and then Spin-a-Yarn. I was impressed with 2 of these three shops and will go back there again. At Spin-a-Yarn I picked up two hanks of the Great Adirondack Yarn Company - the yarn is 52% cotton/48% rayon and the colors are to die for! The official name is 'Casino Honeydew Hattie.' Each hank is 700 yards and will be more than enough for the project I have in mind.

Our last and final yarn store was Village Yarn & Tea Shop. Their one skein project was a lovely pair of lace socks with a ruffled edge. They brought in Claudia Hand Painted Yarn for the tour and I bought one in the blue and brown colorway. I love it. I will actually make the project socks from it!

So, in case you were counting, in a little less than 12 hours - we managed to see 11 of the 24 yarn shops. We did take a little bit of time at each shop, wandering around, visiting with the staff. I did stop at one more store on my way home from work on Thursday, so made it to half of the store. Next year we are planning on spending at least 2 days and a hotel to get to all of them.