Yarn Binge

I took a long weekend trip up the coast to Santa Barbara last week. It was lovely and relaxing for the first couple days, then lovely and funny the next two. Why? Because the first two I was alone and basically just roamed around window shopping, did a lot of yarn buying and worked on some projects. Then on Saturday a whole lot of female relatives rolled into town and we ran around together. It was so fun.

When left to my own devices I hit the two yarn stores in town. The first was Loop & Leaf- a cute little shop that brands itself as a yarn/tea store. The tea seems to be really more of an after-thought. There's a small selection in a side room. The shop's real strength is wool & cashmere. I'm not a huge fan of wool and I don't have the budget for cashmere. Thus, I ended up with only a few skeins. Everything I bough here was on sale! YAY! Although, the "sale" incentive probably got me to buy things I normally wouldn't.

The Loop & Leaf Haul:

Cherry Tree Supersock DK in Country Garden

Project: Fingerless mittens for Maybelle.... and other people too probably :)

Cherry Tree Supersock Select in Peacock

No project... this is just stashed.

Frog Tree Pima Cotton in 630 (Green), 651 (Beige), and 652 (Brown/Slate)

Project: Nothing specifically, but I thought they'd make nice amigurumi friends.

Next I went to Knit & Pearl. This shop is probably less square footage than Loop & leaf but I think they had a larger selection. They definitely had far more of what I was interested in, namely cotton & bamboo. Please don't ask me how much money I spent here. I will tell you it was enough to not have the least bit of guilt over asking the owner to wind 8 balls for me even though she was the only person working the store and there were other customers.

The Knit & Pearl Haul:

Knit One Crochet Too 2nd Time Cotton in Red & Blue

Project: I bought both colors because I loved the yarn so much, but I was drawn to this originally because Earth Day came up this week & marked 15 years since my best friend and I became friends! 2nd Time Cotton is 100% pre-consumer, reclaimed cotton. They all it "recycled" but really they take left over cotton from manufacturers and turn it into yarn rather than let it be thrown out. Full disclosure: I went back and bought two more skeins of each color. I know. I know. It's a good thing, though, as I used 3 + a little more of the red to make a scarf for the BFF. I have to say it came out pretty awesome & will get it's own post once I get pictures of it. I may make her some mitts with the rest of the skein if she's a good girl.

Knit One Crochet Too Babyboo in Hot Pink, Garnet & Cantalope

Project: None necessarily. I bought it because it was a decent price on vibrant bamboo yarn. I friggin' love bamboo. This is the kind of stuff I might end up buying in every color. It was really REALLY hard to choose. Love it. LOVE. IT.

Debbie Bliss Cotton Cashmere in light blue

Project: None. This is stashed for some baby project most likely. I bought it because it was on sale.

And that's my haul. I'm thinking most of the babyboo & the Debbie will be made into little tiny baby clothes. I don't have any little tiny babies to make things for at the moment (my tiniest cousins are approaching 2 years), but with two best friends married & baby-hungry and lots of cousins who are newly married, I imagine there'll be an onslaught of tiny creatures fairly soon. Since you know once you give one person something handmade you have to give EVERYONE something handmade, I really need to start stockpiling.