Fiber Arts Friday: Adding to my Stash

Since I'm working on my Gunnar Mittens, and feeling behind schedule, I really have no business adding to my stash.  However, like any good fiberista, I came up with a great justification.  :-)

I've been working in the Bay Area (near San Francisco, CA) since August.  Generally I am home on the weekend, but stayed over earlier this month.

I took the opportunity to visit the Computer History Museum and downtown Los Altos.

I was casually shopping for holiday gifts, but not really in pursuit of anything specific.  I found a cute coffee shop (with awesome bread), a lovely independent children's book store that had a wonderful (though small) non-fiction section for older readers, and a terrific local yarn shop (LYS).

I had been to Los Altos once before (for running shoes), so I knew it was a charming and more quiet downtown.  It would be a good respite from the traffic of the Bay Area.  The LYS was a complete surprise.

There were several people shopping and chatting, and the two ladies working were absolutely delightful.... no surprise there.  LYS people are the best people!  :-)

I told the proprietor how happy I was to find them and decided that I would find something to buy.  Local Yarn Shops are a tremendous resource, and I want to make sure I am supporting them as much as I can.

I walked around the store touching all of the yarn and found an interesting lace-weight dark purple yarn from Denmark.  The label only says "new wool" so I don't know the sheep variety, but I really liked the texture.

The proprietor then went to her office and brought out a sweater she made from that brand/style of yarn and went to Ravelry to figure out how many skeins would be appropriate for the pattern.

Have I mentioned how much I love LYS people?

We determined that people were using anywhere from 2-4 skeins for the pattern.  So based on the dye lots available, I decided on charcoal and black, and bought four.

I'm not certain I will make a sweater.  I have a few items in my queue that are waiting for the perfect yarn... and this yarn is pretty great.

I also found a lovely, perfect-sized, project bag.

It feels good to support small business, and I was able to at a few places this weekend.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!