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!
