Shop Hop, Day Two, 19 September 2008
G'day all!
After the first frenetic day, we backed up for a second day of shop hopping, this time to the stores around San Jose (or Santa Clara County). Believe it or not, I've ridden to all bar one of the stores we visited on this day. It is sorta hard to evaluate places that you see quite often or have been to before.
B and I agreed to meet at 10:00 at the Appointed Meeting Place. Both of us were a little late but not as late as C who never showed up, well not within 45 minutes of the agreed time (for the second day in a row!).
First we hit Green Planet Yarn, my LYS. It is nice to go to a place where people know your name and ask how things are going. But do NOT bring your dog. Oops, no pic! Sun was behind it.
(Not doing so well on the pics today)
Next up was Commuknity. Commuknity has a bead shop out the back now and I think we spent a lot more time there than we did in the yarn shop itself. I picked up an Addi crochet hook for putting beads on my knitting (and y'know what? The first four beads I picked up with it slid on beatifully - woot, thought I, how excellent! - but I reckon only about 3 out of the next 100 beads went on. Such is life!). The yarn shop itself has a range of the usual US suspects - Cascade, CPY (not a whole lot), ack now the names are abandoning me, along with some Rowan and other upmarket brands. All in all a range of yarns for a range of knitters (and crocheters).
(front entrance)
Bobbin's Nest was still delightful. It has fleece maiden yarns (why yes, I don't give it the proper name cos I interchange them all the time, so hand maiden becomes hand artist (which sounds sorta crude, quite frankly) and fleece artist becomes fleece maiden) and some really cute stuff. More Rowan yarns and some other US brands that are really nice yarns plus Hazel Knits hand-dyed yarn. And up-market material and sewing supplies. One day I will go camp there. (Again no dogs - dogs are not allowed by the lease.)
(back entrance, stop sniggering you in the back row!)
Woot! We found Yarn Place like that! (Clicks fingers) We did not get lost at all even though we didn't have a map and B was not dead sure exactly where it was and I had never been there before. Once she saw the smoke of the sacrificial offerings (burning sausages on a BBQ outside the sausage shop) she knew that we were nearly there. We did GOOD! We did much better than two other ladies who got lost for TWO HOURS! They could not find the place. We were just TOO GOOD!
(Pic of a dualie for my AiL and also of the smoke generated by the burnt offerings)
Anyway, this shop is an interesting place. It has some gorgeous laceweight and upwards in shifting colourways that I am *dying* to try out but really, I already have So Much laceweight yarn that I should use some up before I get more (I'm working on the problem, honest!). The stash problem did not stop me buying some multicoloured Koigu Kersti for a gobsmackingly low price. I also bought a hank of undeyed 95% wool 5% casmere to play with. Oh, the shop is interesting cos it is a weird little place, has some spinning supplies and has a whole lotta stuff at way cheap prices. It is run by a lady of Asian extraction, presumably Chinese cos some yarn is labelled in Chinese, and the store is not about presentation, it is about price. That is very typical in my small experience of discount shops run by Chinese immigrants in my home city. It is just a different way of doing things and I rather like it cos I get good stuff at excellent prices.
(No pic, someone fergot!)
We then did the long haul down to The Knitting Room on the other side of town where we met up with S&B. This shop is run by a lovely older chap called Ed. The shop itself tends to attract older ladies, but they do have a men's knit and crochet night. I think the shop has been around for donkey's years. It has a few different things though such as a good range of CPY sock yarns (including my favourite colourway in a yarn I've already knitted with, dangit!). I bought their single skein pattern to make a hat for Nathan (orange yarn) and 5 booklets for yarns that are not made any more - good basic patterns in most of them and one that fascinated me.
Clouds! In the sky! The view from the park where we had lunch.
Finally we finished off at Yarn Dogs. There were CLOUDS in the sky, big DARK clouds coming off the mountains! CLOUDS! Anyway, Yarn Dogs has a good range of Rowan yarns along with a few others, a fair whack of synthetics (apparnetly babies here still get clothed in acrylic rather than a machine washable wool), some "eco"yarns and some real purty high end stuff that I want to roll around in for a while. Oh and it has a nice wall of sock yarn.
Can you believe it took us 6 hours just to do 7 shops (and we didn't really do Green Planet cos I'm there all the time and B can't take her dog in)? We were EXHAUSTED!
And look, grey skies in the afternoon!
Oh, the current word here is fun. As in "that is FUN!" And if the person really likes it or is being suckily nice to a person who does like something that they don't, it is "too fun!" or "so FUN!"
anon!
After the first frenetic day, we backed up for a second day of shop hopping, this time to the stores around San Jose (or Santa Clara County). Believe it or not, I've ridden to all bar one of the stores we visited on this day. It is sorta hard to evaluate places that you see quite often or have been to before.
B and I agreed to meet at 10:00 at the Appointed Meeting Place. Both of us were a little late but not as late as C who never showed up, well not within 45 minutes of the agreed time (for the second day in a row!).
First we hit Green Planet Yarn, my LYS. It is nice to go to a place where people know your name and ask how things are going. But do NOT bring your dog. Oops, no pic! Sun was behind it.
(Not doing so well on the pics today)
Next up was Commuknity. Commuknity has a bead shop out the back now and I think we spent a lot more time there than we did in the yarn shop itself. I picked up an Addi crochet hook for putting beads on my knitting (and y'know what? The first four beads I picked up with it slid on beatifully - woot, thought I, how excellent! - but I reckon only about 3 out of the next 100 beads went on. Such is life!). The yarn shop itself has a range of the usual US suspects - Cascade, CPY (not a whole lot), ack now the names are abandoning me, along with some Rowan and other upmarket brands. All in all a range of yarns for a range of knitters (and crocheters).
(front entrance)
Bobbin's Nest was still delightful. It has fleece maiden yarns (why yes, I don't give it the proper name cos I interchange them all the time, so hand maiden becomes hand artist (which sounds sorta crude, quite frankly) and fleece artist becomes fleece maiden) and some really cute stuff. More Rowan yarns and some other US brands that are really nice yarns plus Hazel Knits hand-dyed yarn. And up-market material and sewing supplies. One day I will go camp there. (Again no dogs - dogs are not allowed by the lease.)
(back entrance, stop sniggering you in the back row!)
Woot! We found Yarn Place like that! (Clicks fingers) We did not get lost at all even though we didn't have a map and B was not dead sure exactly where it was and I had never been there before. Once she saw the smoke of the sacrificial offerings (burning sausages on a BBQ outside the sausage shop) she knew that we were nearly there. We did GOOD! We did much better than two other ladies who got lost for TWO HOURS! They could not find the place. We were just TOO GOOD!
(Pic of a dualie for my AiL and also of the smoke generated by the burnt offerings)
Anyway, this shop is an interesting place. It has some gorgeous laceweight and upwards in shifting colourways that I am *dying* to try out but really, I already have So Much laceweight yarn that I should use some up before I get more (I'm working on the problem, honest!). The stash problem did not stop me buying some multicoloured Koigu Kersti for a gobsmackingly low price. I also bought a hank of undeyed 95% wool 5% casmere to play with. Oh, the shop is interesting cos it is a weird little place, has some spinning supplies and has a whole lotta stuff at way cheap prices. It is run by a lady of Asian extraction, presumably Chinese cos some yarn is labelled in Chinese, and the store is not about presentation, it is about price. That is very typical in my small experience of discount shops run by Chinese immigrants in my home city. It is just a different way of doing things and I rather like it cos I get good stuff at excellent prices.
(No pic, someone fergot!)
We then did the long haul down to The Knitting Room on the other side of town where we met up with S&B. This shop is run by a lovely older chap called Ed. The shop itself tends to attract older ladies, but they do have a men's knit and crochet night. I think the shop has been around for donkey's years. It has a few different things though such as a good range of CPY sock yarns (including my favourite colourway in a yarn I've already knitted with, dangit!). I bought their single skein pattern to make a hat for Nathan (orange yarn) and 5 booklets for yarns that are not made any more - good basic patterns in most of them and one that fascinated me.
Clouds! In the sky! The view from the park where we had lunch.
Finally we finished off at Yarn Dogs. There were CLOUDS in the sky, big DARK clouds coming off the mountains! CLOUDS! Anyway, Yarn Dogs has a good range of Rowan yarns along with a few others, a fair whack of synthetics (apparnetly babies here still get clothed in acrylic rather than a machine washable wool), some "eco"yarns and some real purty high end stuff that I want to roll around in for a while. Oh and it has a nice wall of sock yarn.
Can you believe it took us 6 hours just to do 7 shops (and we didn't really do Green Planet cos I'm there all the time and B can't take her dog in)? We were EXHAUSTED!
And look, grey skies in the afternoon!
Oh, the current word here is fun. As in "that is FUN!" And if the person really likes it or is being suckily nice to a person who does like something that they don't, it is "too fun!" or "so FUN!"
anon!
That is a lot of shops! I'm curious can you get yarn dogs in Yarn Dogs or is that a shaggy dog story?
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