Hill Country Yarn Crawl: Day 3
Day three was my extreme yarn crawling day. Well, sort of. It didn't end up being quite as extreme as I hoped as I didn't make it to all seven of the shops that were still on my list - but I did get to five of them! 330 miles of driving over an eleven plus hour period and I was toast by the end of the day. But I got to see lots and lots of yarn!
I left about 8:00 and made a beeline for the farthest shop from me: The Yarn Barn of San Antonio. It's located in the downtown area and naturally I missed my exit, plus a couple turns I should have taken once I got off the highway, so I went roundy roundy for a bit, but I finally got there! They had put out information about additional parking and, sure enough, I had to look that up. But I found a spot to park and got through their doors around eleven.
Open since 1971, The Yarn Barn is the oldest needle arts shop in San Antonio and they certainly have an eclectic selection of yarns and needlepoint supplies. I found a really springy shade of green cotton among their featured yarns to include in my afghan and I also got to meet the delightful Beth, who is in the process of licensing her charted ‪‎crochet‬ patterns for some great local teams and looking to expand from there! Her site www.HandMadeByBeth.com goes live November 9th - keep an eye on this one!!
Stop number two was Yarnivore, located on San Antonio's northwest side, only a few doors down from the Thirsty Horse Saloon, incidentally, which sounds like a sit and stitch would either be a whole lot of fun or a whole lot of trouble! ;) The staff was really fun, though, (they do claim to be the yarn shop with attitude!) and check out this kiwi I found!
"New Zealand's National Symbol. Kiwis are flightless, about the size of a domestic fowl and nocturnal. Their favourite food is the garden worm. There are three species of Native Kiwi - the Brown, Little Grey and Great Spotted." That's what it said on his feet. He hails from Opossum World in Napier, New Zealand, where he was handcrafted with *gasp* "genuine opossum fur." Shh, don't tell him that!! He was already giving me the stink eye...
By the time I got to the third shop, I already needed a nap. I blame the baby, but I might have been just as tuckered out regardless. Guess I'll just have to do another yarn crawl and find out! Next year I'll have an 8 month old, though... O.o
Oh, back to THIS crawl. Inskein Yarns, on yet another side of San Antonio, was a fun and quirky little spot with bright green all over the place. It was invigorating! Well, after I stopped to close my eyes for a bit. The chairs were SO comfy, though! Way better than getting back in the car...
Isn't that green fun!? They also had little metal baskets organizing their yarns and each basket was rather cleverly labeled with a QR code that would take you to the Ravelry page for each yarn so you could see projects people have made with that particular yarn. Ingenious! Oh and their sit and stitch group? It's called Asylum. How awesome is that!?
My next stop was Lucky Ewe Yarn in New Braunfels, which is just stinkin' cute. Greune Lake Village reminds me of ski resort villages! I'd love to go just walk around there for a while. Inside I met Bet Matthews, who is a brand new dyer! He's been at it for about three months now and I think his line of yarn is called Maverick. It's a silk and merino blend, is SO soft and squishy, and there's even a cowl pattern to go with the yarn! Watch for it on Ravelry soon.
My selection from their featured yarns was a bit unexpected. It's an off white boucle that I never would have thought I'd choose for this afghan, but oddly, I liked it in there! I'm getting excited about seeing how this comes together, though.
I was impressed with their variety of kits featuring original designs for many of the yarns they carry. I think it's a great way to help knitters and crocheters visualize what they might do with a particular yarn. Naturally, the Dr Seuss blanket was my favorite. :)
The fifth and final stop turned out to be Ply! Yarn, Art & Handwovens, a teeny tiny little shop out in Wimberley, TX. I felt like a crazy person walking around the downtown area trying to find it, but I finally asked someone and realized that I just hadn't quite walked far enough. I found it tucked away down by the river at last and it was just the cutest little space - the little yarn shop with a view!
They have a really nice line of Alpaca yarn from the owners' 18 free-ranging Alpaca on their ranch there in Wimberley, but I ended up with a yummy skein of merino, cashmere, and nylon yarn called Squishy (how great is that!?) for my afghan. I know, it's a little extravagant for a stashbuster style project, but it's getting really hard to choose colors now that I'm down to the last few shops. And come on - it's called Squishy!!
It was just after five when I left Ply! and I knew that even if I made it to one of the shops in Austin before they closed, there was no way I was making it to both and I was just. so. exhausted. I decided it was time to call it a day. And I was glad I did because the traffic, as I'm sure you can imagine, wasn't great. I just hated that I was driving right through Austin on my way home anyway. But there wasn't enough time in the day, nor enough energy in this body. So home I went.
​Day 3 yarn crawl haul includes:
The Yarn Barn: Sirdar Cotton 4Ply in Larkin
Yarnivore: Manos del Uruguay Maxima in Concord
Inskein Yarns: Berroco Lago in Sand
Lucky Ewe Yarn: Plymouth Yarn Arequipa Boucle in Ecru
Ply!: Anzula Squishy in Keola
One more day of crawling!
-C