2015 Yarn Crawl Part II
The second day of yarn crawling I did
with 3RC member Doug and his friend Kim.
We went to four shops on the official yarn crawl and one ‘bonus’ shop
not on the crawl:
Yarns By Design
Dyed in the Wool
Natural Stitches
Tonidale
Knit One
First stop was Yarns By Design in
Oakmont. It’s a nice midsized shop, with
a good selection of yarns. It is mostly
knit, with very few crochet patterns offered.
I didn’t get a crochet unfriendly vibe, however. One of the items I got at Yarns By Design
were kid’s hat kits, Top This. It’s a skein
of mixed texture yarns and includes a stuffed hat topper. They were mostly animal heads along with a
flower and soccer ball. I picked up the
soccer ball kit and unicorn head. It
only comes with knit instructions, not crochet.
I haven’t made them yet, but they are next on my project list.
If there was a prize for most improved,
it would go to Dyed in the Wool. Those
of you who read last year’s Yarn Crawl blog will know that I didn’t have a
very positive experience there. Chatting
with others, I wasn’t the only one.
However, this year they seemed to be making a real effort to be
welcoming of new folks into their shop.
We were greeted when we came in the door and asked if we needed any help
finding anything. The women working
there seemed to be paying attention to what we were doing, ready to help if
asked. Even the shop seemed cleaner and
more organized. Its still very much a
knit shop, with some spinning items. I
did pick up some pretty hand dyed yarn.
When one of the people working there noticed what I had chosen, she made
sure to show me a sample of the yarn that had been made into a baby
outfit. Nice job improving on the
customer service, keep it up!
After Dyed in the Wool, we stopped for
lunch at Mediterrano, a Mediterranean restaurant on Babcock Bulevard. Where I totally failed to take any photos. Lunch was very tasty. I tried the beet salad, pantzaria salata, and
it was delicious. I also had the lamb
burger. It tasted good, but the texture
was a bit chewy compared to a beef burger.
Kim had spanokopitakia, phyllo pastry filled with spinach and feta, and dolmades, grape leaves stuffed
with rice and beef. Kim was generous enough
to share one of her dolmades with me, it was very good. I don’t remember what Doug had. Sorry about that. I would definitely return to this
restaurant. Thus fortified, the three of us continued on our
journey.
Next up was Natural Stitches. We’d all been there before. It’s a very large store, with a huge variety
of yarns. One of the outstanding things
about this store is that each type of yarn is marked with the general amounts
needed to make different items. Its in
knit measurements, but from that crocheters can estimate. Crochet uses about a third more yarn (not 3x)
than knitting. There is a decent
selection of crochet pattern books. I
bought three new books: Suzann Thompson’s
Crochet Garden, Monette Satterfield’s Let’s Crochet, and Mollie Makes
Crochet. I haven’t made anything out of
any of the books yet (having been making amigurumi puzzle balls and felted pumpkins)
but they are on the to do list. I was
thinking that making flowers might be a good stash buster.
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| For those that spin and knit, kits to take you from fleece to socks. |
Tonidale’s was the first shop on this part
of the yarn crawl that was new to me.
Doug had been to their old location and said that the new place was much
bigger. It was a bit tricky finding the place, since the yarn crawl ‘passport’
had the wrong address listed. Once we
acquired the right address through the magic of the internet, it was much
easier to locate, especially with the big sign on the edge of the parking
lot. I loved the way they displayed the yarn on the
walls, in circles stacked on each other.
Tonidale’s has a wide variety of ‘novelty’ yarns, including ribbon yarn
and eyelash yarn. This made my friend
Rebecca (who crawled at this store on a different day) happy, since she loves
working with ribbon yarn. There was also
a nice selection of ‘regular’ yarn, in a good range of prices. I picked up some bright red acrylic yarn
along with some matching variegated acrylic yarn. I also got a ‘learn to crochet’ kit for my 7
year old niece, who has been having fun finger weaving. Doug bought some pretty purple hand dyed
superwash merino yarn.
Our last stop of the day was Knit One in
Squirrel Hill. It wasn’t on the official
yarn crawl. Doug wanted to stop there
since it had recently gotten new management and he was curious what the shop
was now like. Knit One is also a large
store, with a good selection of yarn. Although I saw very few crochet patterns or books. It does have comfy chairs and couches spread throughout the store. I took advantage of one of these comfy
couches, as Doug and Kim browsed. While
sprawled on the couch, I realized I could overhear the beginning knitting class
that was going on in the back section of the store. I blatantly eavesdropped and was very
impressed by the instructor. She was
encouraging and patient with her students. When one of the students expressed her
frustration at still having difficulty, the instructor convincingly pointed out
how much progress she had made and showed her the things she had done correctly
in her practice sample. The student
began working again with renewed enthusiasm.
Five shops in one day was definitely
exhausting. Doug, Kim, and I made our
way home with our bags of new yarn and patterns. Just three more shops to go!
