Hill Country Yarn Crawl: Day 2

Day 2 of the yarn crawl took me to the east side of hill country - it was more like very gently rolling hills. In between lots of flat spaces. I did get to see several longhorns, though! I've only seen one here or there since we moved here over a year ago, which has been kind of disappointing, in all honesty! So it was a little exciting to see as many as I did.

Stop #1 was WC Mercantile in Navasota, TX. Wooden floors and nice open spaces made this a very welcoming, lovely little shop. You see that sculpture in their front window on the left? It's by Lisa Urban and it's called The Enchant-knit Forest! It is the physical manifestion of her paintings, where she creates "surrealistic worlds inhabited by knitted forms" like these trees - isn't it cool!? I'm not sure how long I tried to make the trees be people before I noticed the information posted and read it, ha ha! It'll be there until November so go check it out!

Inside the shop, I found an adorable little giraffe hat "kit" of sorts that I simply could not resist, so that's another project in my queue. But it's for baby so that makes it okay, right!? I did pick out another skein for my commemorative afghan - a really cozy Malabrigo in a fun accent color.

One of their free patterns was this fantastically sheepish pillow, here, and the knit pattern was quite nice, too. Now if I can just find a reason to crochet this pillow...

Oh! She also had cookies to give out. Some sort of pumpkin chocolate chip deliciousness. YUMm-O! Definitely baby approved. ;) The cookie didn't last long enough to make it into a picture, though. Oops!

The rolling hills took me back westward again, past countless antique shops it seemed, for stop #2, to The Quilted Skein in La Grange, TX. They had THE cutest woolly little sheep! I think the big pink one in the window was my favorite, but I liked the smaller ones inside the store, too.

The combination of fabric and yarn was delightfully colorful - and the gorgeous pillows they had right up front (another free pattern for us yarn crawlers!!) did nothing to discourage the creative madness that was threatening to creep in. Neither did the fabulous natural light streaming in. But I resisted, mostly because I remembered that I really don't like sewing. Like, at all. But those pillows really tempted me! Instead I found a big, fun ball of yarn to turn into a cowl (this one's okay because it's for me! Rigth?) plus a nece green superwash merino for the afghan. Commemoghan? No, that's just weird. Moving on!

The last stop of the day was just a hop, skip, and a jump over from La Grange: Yarnorama! in Paige, TX.

(I noticed some smoke on my way in and again leaving - turns out there IS a fire, and there has been some acreage as well as a few homes lost, but they are working to get it contained. You can read more on the Hidden Pines Fire here. Please keep them in your thoughts!)

So Yarnorama! is kind of out in the toolies, but I think it was my favorite shop of the day! Admittedly, that probably had something to do with the super happy and friendly baby I got to visit with as well as this fluffy little guy.

Meet Coco, an unbelievably soft and well, fluffy, European Angora rabbit. He. Was. Awesome! He was working on shedding some of his coat, so he was a bit of a mess, but he was super friendly. I couldn't believe how long his hair was! Or how small he felt underneath it all. Yes, I got to pet him! I just wanted to hug him and squeeze him and call him George... Um, ... well, he was kind of irresistable!

Yes, I did find some yarn there despite the distraction. I've always wanted to try Rowan and I found a pretty little skein in the sale bin that will be quite nice in the afghan I think.

So that's three more down and seven still to go. I'm halfway there!

​Day 2 yarn crawl haul includes:

• WC Mercantile: Malabrigo Silky Merino in Raspberry and one Top This! Giraffe hat, um, kit? It's from DMC!

• The Quilted Skein: Cascade Yarns 220 Superwash Sport in Moss and James C. Brett Marble Chunky in MC28

• Yarnorama!: Rowan Colourspun in Hubberholme

Can't wait to see what I find in the next day of crawling!

-C

#yarncrawl #crochet