I am seriously going insane.  Remember this yarn shop I was talking about, Knitting in the Loop?  I swear, it’s killing me.  One brand a day, 50% off, for 7 days!  Thank God I’m working tomorrow and won’t be able to go.  But will my enablers help me?

Today it was Mirasol and Araucania.

So, I got myself some Mirasol Nuna and some Araucania Trauco (%100 Cashmere!)

Do I have to work the streets now?

Ya know, I’ve been traveling so much (well, it’s a lot for me!), that I am forgetting what week or what month I’m currently in.  Even more so, what have I blogged about and not blogged about and where have I been and in what order.  Terribly frustrating you know.  I mean I could sit down and open up my calendar and figure it all out, but who has the time these days.

So, as I was looking at my Ravelry page last night, I saw that I actually acquired some stash along with my travels but have made no mention of them whatsoever.  So here, let me tell you all about all the exciting places that I’ve been and what has been collected on the way….. in no particular order.

I think I’m going to try and show you the pictures gallery style……. a feature of WordPress that I hadn’t really played around with much.

So, starting from Left to Right, Top to Bottom…… my visits, the events and the stash that came with it!  The first 2 pictures are part of the gallery…… they are just logos from the shops that I’ve been.  You will see.

1. WEBS, America’s Yarn Store (yes, I was physically there during my trip to the Men’s Spring Knitting Retreat.  North Hampton, Massachusetts – Rowan RYC Cashsoft 4 ply.
2. WEBS in North Hampton Massachusetts – Plymouth Happy Feet
3. WEBS in North Hampton Massachusetts – JaggerSpun, Zephyr
4. MSKR 2010 at Easton Mountain, New York – Shelridge Farm Soft Touch Wool Cotton
5. Balls & Skeins in Sebastopol, California – Misti Alpaca Tonos Pima Silk
6. Cast Away in Santa Rosa, California – Be Sweet Bamboo

Yummy stuff huh?

Oh, and the 2 yarn shops in California, they are the cutest little yarn shops that I’ve ever been too.  Check out their website and hopefully they have some pictures of the store.

I have pictures of the labels…..

So, that’s at least a little update you guys get from me for now.  I’m still here, not going anywhere, no exciting new publications….. so I tend to be a little quiet, because….. there’s not much to tell ya folks.

But still, stop by, check on me, send me messages and comments because I just love all ya’ll.

Hello world!  As some of you might know, I was just in sunny Sunnyvale, California.   Last week was a real intense work week for me, but of course, I HAD to find a yarn shop.  It’s tradition for me.  Everywhere I visit, it WILL be on my to do list to find a Local Yarn Shop and of course, get a little something different that I don’t have here in Texas.

So a short GOOGLE search landed me to Purlescense Yarns which was only like a 5 minutes drive from the hotel.  It’s a SIGN!

I was immediately met by the owner Kaye.  It so happens that Thursday nights, they open till 9 PM for Knit Night.  It was a cute little shop!  I sat around and browsed and left with this.

And on my way out, I got a little knitting bag to remember my visit.  Nice!

I just took a 7 hour exam, checked out of my hotel and drove all the way to Oakland to catch a 6 am flight in the morning.
I think I’ll just leave ya’ll with pictures.

Art Fibers – Absolutely FABULOUS. I just have to blog about this separately.

Art Fibers inside

Art Fibers inside

Socktopus AKA WonderMike

WonderMike’s friend Michael M and me, after a long yarn crawl day.

Merry Christmas Everybody.

As you all know, I am still in Sunny (cold and rainy actually) California. I have made up 4 rules when out of town:

1. Visit a Local Yarn Shop

2. Take Pictures

3. Support the Local Yarn Shop by buying something

4. Blog about it

So, I met my wonderful cyber blog buddy Michael from Socktopus and he pretty much helped me to achieve task Number 1 in Berkeley, CA. We made it to Stash and Article Pract.

Both awesome stores.

Stash

Stash – Inside

Article Pract (Practical Art – How cool!!!)

Article Pract – Inside

So, I will post again about task Number 3. Stay tuned for the Purchases!!!

So, I think it’s official. I have decided that every time I travel out of town, I must visit at least ONE Local Yarn Shop (LYS), take some pictures, buy some stuff and come home and blog about it. It just feels like the right thing to do as a knitter (wow, I’m calling myself a knitter!) and also, it is also soooo much fun.

This time, my travel brings me to Gail Knits, a nice little shop somewhere out in the dessert. No, I’m just kidding, I don’t think it was even close to a desert, but it did take me an awfully long time to get there in the middle of Las Vegas rush hour. Plus, all I had to do was to listen to this very sexy Australian guy telling me which way to turn and how to get there.

No!!! I didn’t find an Australian boyfriend, it was just my very very useful GPS system. I’m such a dork! (ps: I picked the voice and the accent – his name was Lee from Australia!)

But anyways, I just notice from this picture, that either Gail (the owner) secretly runs a kick boxing studio in the back, or the word kick boxing was from an old sign. However, her shop sure did not smell like sweaty jockstraps and boxing gloves! (there I go again, another poor attempt to crack a joke!)

And how lucky, I happened to stop in during knit night…….

And like any other place, it’s always good to support the LYS’s in the area and buy a little something. I know, I know, I said no stash, but it’s just the experience of buying “imported” yarn, imported from another state!

My latest project:

So, this is the very first web site that I’ve ever built in my life. It is for my LYS that I go to and of course, my friend, Nancy who owns the store. I just thought that since it’s just in it’s baby stages, a good way to promote the Google bots is through my blog, which has been out on the web for several years now.

So, I would like my fellow readers to let me know what you think for my very first publicly published website????

Bear in mind, it is all skin and bones now. The meat is yet to come. There is a lot more work to be done. But it’s collaboration time with the owner to get all the other information. But what I would like is input on the colors, the layout, the general skeleton of the site etc…….

Another thing that is starting to bug me too is that I did this for free. I was ok with that until a co-worker told me that he freelanced on web page design and charges about $75/page!!!!!! I don’t need the money, but I do sure hope that Nancy understands how much money I’ve saved her. Cuz let me tell ya what, building a website ain’t no walk in the park!

Well this will be yarn shop number 2 in the San Ramon area, Walnut Creek, California to be exact. What a blast I had at this shop. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

First off, I got pissed off because I didn’t get a picture of the store front, so we’ll have to settle for this:

But inside the store:

The wonderful ladies inside the store that invited me to Barnes and Noble to eat and knit later:

These elegant California Ladies were a hoot to be around. They are all fabulous knitters, loud, dynamic and full of energy. Surely picked me up after having a long day at work. Conversations ran from topics like butt cracks, junk in the trunk of black booties to hot Asian/Korean/Chinese men and breast cancer. What a night!!!!

And the stash!!!!! BAD KENNY. REMEMBER HOW I VOWED NEVER TO HAVE STASH?????

So, if you are ever in the Walnut Creek area, please be sure to visit

Fashion Knits
1538 Newell Avenue,
Walnut Creek, CA 94596
phone 925.943.3994

PS: There is one regret though, I didn’t get to meet the owner……. she was out of town. So, Janelle, if you read this, know that The Boy Who Knits from Houston visited and supported the local yarn shops of Walnut Creek!

Ann asked if I moved to California. I WISH!!!!! It’s so wonderful out here!!!! I could go on and on about the weather, but I won’t. I’m here for work and it’s a little stressing right now. It’s now lunch time and I’m taking a break.

So after work, yesterday, even though I was SOOOOOOOOO tired, I made it to THAT YARN SHOP in Dublin, CA. Check this out!

The owner Jamelle Lampkin was such a super duper nice lady, but she really didn’t want her picture taken.

I really wanted some sock yarn but there wasn’t any in the gauge that I was going to knit up with, in the material that I liked or the color that I liked. Yet I still made a small purchase…… (you know, you have too, in every city you go!)

So, there you have it, if you ever visit Dublin, CA, which is near San Ramon, CA, pay Jamelle a visit and tell her that The Boy Who Knits from Houston, TX sent you there!