Day Trip & Trunk Show

If it hasn't become clear over the last year or so, I am totally in love with Tolt Yarn & Wool. It's my preferred day trip with friends, the store that always has yarny things I want to purchase, and it has the added bonus of smelling wonderfully of wool and unfinished wood (a cleaned up version of barns I visited as a kid).  So when I learned that Local Color Fiber Studio was having a trunk show at Tolt, I organized a day trip with friends to have brunch and partake of some Local Color. It did not disappoint. 

 See? Pure droolworthy wool, ripe for the squishing and the sniffing. I always give yarn a nice sniff, don't you?

Emily and Tatyana are the master dyers behind Local Color and I've been daydreaming about their yarn since I purchased a skein of their yarn dyed from grape skins at KnitFit! last November. I came home with two more skeins - one in Indigo (middlish bottom deep blue in the above picture) and one in Madder (very bottom left-hand corner orange in the above picture). I'm always amazed at the array of colors from natural dye stuffs. Now, if only we had hard wood floors so I could knit myself a giant rug with Local Color's rug yarn....

If you're curious to know our brunch destination, we always go to The Grange Cafe in Duvall. Duvall is about a 10 or 15 minute drive north of Carnation and features local, fresh ingredients. I highly recommend the veggie benedict.

A Knitting Day Trip: Tolt Yarn and Wool

Yesterday I wrangled two of my good friends into my car and took a little day trip out of the city and into the wilds East of Lake Washington. After about a 45 minute drive we arrived in Duvall and had breakfast at the Grange Cafe. This place is delicious. The coffee was tasty and appropriately strong and there were plenty of vegetarian options - my veggies benedict was cooked to perfection and served on a homemade biscuit. Yum! After lingering over our breakfast we made the short drive to Carnation (about 15 minutes South) to attend the Grand Opening of a new yarn store - Tolt Yarn and Wool.

 There was quite a crowd! I think the owner and employees were a little overwhelmed but they were cheerful and smiling and happy to see so many people make the trip.  The store is open and airy (well, it would be open and airy on a normal business day) and smells like freshly cut wood and sheepy wool. In a word, heavenly.

 The fixtures holding yarn were beautiful and inventive. I was particularly taken with this old p.o. box unit. Those are tiny balls of Rowan Fine Tweed.

There were tons of samples throughout the store. This is a Lopi sweater displayed next to Lopi and Peace Fleece yarns. The store is thoughtfully curated with basics like Cascade Yarns and Malabrigo interspersed with interesting and harder to find yarns like Jill Draper, Sweet Fiber, and Spincycle. I came away with some Imperial Stock Ranch Tracie Too in Navy Blue and a heavy duty Tolt mug for my morning coffee. The line to check out was looooong but the little bag of swag they snuck into my bag of purchases and the opportunity to knit while in line made it worthwhile. I'll definitely go back soon!

Lintilla

Last Sunday I dug through my stash and pulled out a fairly old skein of sock yarn. This skein has been rolling around in my stash for almost as long as I've been knitting - 5 years! It's Fearless Fibers and comes in a whopping 550 yard skein. She's changed her base and put up in the years since I purchased my skein but the colorway is still available (Inner Sanctum). This is all in pursuit of Lintilla which is strangely satisfying to knit considering it's only garter and short-rows. I love how each garter short-row section flows into the rest of the knitting.

In other news, I'm off to the shop to work the Annual LYS Tour which is fun and crazy and exhausting. I always dread/love this weekend since it's so incredibly tiring but really fun to see new people in the store and excited about yarn! Our shop project is a hat with a sideways cable knit in Malabrigo Rios. Yum. I plan on sporting my new Fair Isle Yoke Sweater since Seattle weather is changeable and it's raining today. I guess that's a boo/yay situation.