Missouri yarn-ventures

Of *course* my mom and I plotted stops at several yarn shops on our trip -- would you expect anything less?

The first shop we went to was Simply Fibers in Springfield, Mo. (Links are going to take you to my mom's photos of the shops.) A little Maltese-Yorkie pup named Charlie greeted us when we walked in. He was one of the cutest pups I've ever seen - when he got going with running, his front legs just went straight and he looked like a marching soldier (for lack of a better description). I have a bias toward dogs in yarn shops (especially when they're small, non-shedding and well-behaved) -- so Charlie was a big hit. Kelle was working at the shop and she was just the bubbliest, nicest gal. She even logged on to Ravelry to friend each of us. (Kelle, if you see this, I hope your trip to Ireland was great!)

I bought two skeins of sock yarn, some Opal (because I'm a sucker for self-patterning yarns right now) and a tweedy purple-blue one by Hand Painted Knitting Yarns, dyed for the store.





That was our only yarn shop in southwest Missouri. We stopped at a fabric store for my mom in what felt like the middle of nowhere. The selection wasn't to my mom's liking, but the shop owner was really friendly and outgoing, so I bought some buttons for baby sweaters and that was about it.

Once we got back to the eastern side of the state, we visited Kirkwood Knittery in suburban St. Louis. They had a Memorial Day sale, yippee! Their selection was nice, and they had a nice-sized crowd there, too. One of the proprietors was very friendly and had a ton of questions for my mom about the college where she works (my mom was wearing a t-shirt from it). It's always nice to chat with people when you're on trips. I picked up some Jojoland Melody.





We stopped at Jackman's Fabrics, where my mom picked up some nice things. (Um, can you tell I'm not a quilter/sew-er? This description is a brief one, hee hee.) Then we checked into our hotel in St. Louis, had some yummy Mexican food and a margarita and called it a night.

On Sunday, we visited Knitty Couture in the Delmar neighborhood. This was a cool area, but boy was it a hot day. It was a really cute store ... I *almost* didn't buy anything, but ... at the last minute I spotted this merino-cashmere-nylon sock yarn. Something I've wanted to try for a long while. So I picked it up -- Spirit Trail Fiberworks Frija sock yarn in a deliciously scummy color called Vintage:



We weren't going to go to the last yarn shop on our list -- our feet were aching, we were hot and tired. But the GPS told us we were less than five miles from Knitorious. So off we went.

It was a nice-sized store with a TON of selection. I had a tough time deciding but in the end went with something outside my normal color choices -- this Dyeabolic Strong Arm sock.



And thus concludes my yarn adventures in St. Louis! I think it's time to hold myself accountable publicly and say that's it for yarn-buying and me for some time. I am so incredibly fortunate to have the yarn stash that I do, and I'm going to continue to knit from it as fast as I can. I plan to stay on this yarn diet until Sheep and Wool next year (barring gifts that require a specific yarn that I don't already own). We'll see how it goes ...