Good Company + Good Yarn = Great Time!

Oh.My.God! What a wonderful weekend!

We flew out Friday morning and thankfully the snow Thursday night, while it did nothing to help me with my class, also didn’t hurt our trip. We got in around 11:30 or so and checked into our beautiful junior suite – replete with a lovely tea service waiting for us! After a quick snack, I called Colleen and we arranged to meet for lunch. Colleen didn’t have a lot of time, since she was heading down to New York to take in the last of The Gates, but we had a great lunch anyway at the Parish Cafe. I had the Veal Pastrami sandwich and it was very, very good. While we were getting to know each other, Colleen filled me on all the good yarn stores to hit – and hit them I did. Thanks Colleen for showing me a good time!

After lunch I went back to the hotel and took a brief nap in preparation for Wendy and our super yarn crawl.

Wendy was so sweet and brought me a gift, thinking I’d been having some bad days lately. It was a yellow laughing bag! Seriously, there’s no defense for this thing. (Unfortunately, I asked Wendy to hold it for me, and I forgot to ask for it back. So I went home without it – but Wendy, know it was very appreciated. I smile every time I think about it!)

Our first stop was Windsor Buttons, then A Good Yarn, finally Circles and then off to dinner.

Here is my haul for the weekend:

Really, there’s no yarn left in Boston!

I’m going to go through shop by shop, but I figured I’d spare you the details if you don’t want them. So if you want every sordid minute of my fabu trip – keep reading! {Warning – it’s a freaking novel!}

Windsor Buttons

This store surprised me. When you walk in, there is a wall of buttons to your left, and in front of you is your regular, run of the mill, notions store. Not very impressive, until Wendy led me to the back where all the yarn lived. Lots of Manos, some Artyarns, lots of furry, fuzzy, fun yarns. I didn’t go crazy since I was pacing myself and was waiting for A Good Yarn and Cirlces to go nuts.

I did find some bright orange chenille – Crystal Palace color #2230. I’m thinking it might work very well as a border on the Pinwheel Blanket.

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I actually did try to get back to Windsor Buttons on Sunday, but alas, they were closed.

Okay – so off we went onto the T – the old-fashioned green-line – to make our way out to Brookline and A Good Yarn.

A Good Yarn

While we were walking up to the shop from the T, Wendy asked me if I read the blue blog. I said, of course! (I mean, really, who doesn’t read the blue blog?) She said, well, this is Alison’s LYS that she’s always talking about. Good to know!

We went in and we’re fondling all the wonderful yarns when someone (I think it was Johanna) calls out Alison! Wendy and I whipped our heads around at the same time with knowing smiles – and then we pounced like only blogstalkers can! Thank you Alison for bearing with us! You were so sweet. We had a fun time helping her pick out some yarn – I pushed hard for the Jo Sharp she ended up with – and didn’t do too badly ourselves.

Cascade 220 in (l. to r.) #7810, #7826, #7802, #8895 and #7814.

This is for something special – photography related actually. What will it be knitted? Maybe a super crazy felted bag. Not sure actually. But I’m sure I’ll find something neat to do with it eventually.

I also bought some wonderful Manos (color #114):

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For sure this is for the very cool scarf I saw on M.J.’s blog the other day. It’s My So Called Scarf and can be found at Sheep in the City. Ends up Wendy’s making one of these too! It’ll look great with my winter puffy jacket. The pattern calls for two skeins, so of course I bought three. I want fringe baby!

Finally I bought a cute baby sweater pattern – I’m pretty sure Wendy got the same one. I’m going to use the tons of All Season’s Cotton I have to match the Pinwheel Blanket.

Alison, Johanna and the gang at A Good Yarn were wonderful! It’a great shop – I’d be thrilled if I had an LYS like that near me – lots of yarn, terrific varieties, good company and great assistance.

Circles

So we jumped on a bus and headed off to Circles. Colleen was nice enough to give me a referral card, so I was good to go with 10% off my purchases (thanks again Colleen!)

My big purchase was three hanks of Chasing Rainbows Tussah/Merino combo in Mary’s colorway. This stuff is amazing! I don’t have pictures, because I had to order it, but trust me. It’s going to be a clapotis for me! Yeah! I also walked away with two skiens of Wildfoote Sock Yarn in Tom Cat:

I also picked up a Takhi Yarns Fall/Winter 2004 Pattern book and the Interweave Knits Fall 2003. Basically, I fell in love with the Short-Row Striped Pullover in the IK:

I’ve got money left on a Yarnmarket.com gift certificate and I think this would look great in Rowan Wool Cotton. Don’t you? That means it would be perfect for winter, spring and fall. I think I’ll use different colors though.

Circles was really great – what a great place to meet and knit and relax. Some nice Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach playing in the back room – it was a warm and inviting. You Boston gals sure are lucky!

Wendy and I moved on to dinner (we were starving!) and conversation at Village Sushi & Grill. Another great meal in Beantown! Wendy was sweet enough to drive me back to my hotel. I’m sorry you didn’t get to hang out – but thanks for a fantastic night!

Newbury Yarns

Saturday morning, Georgie had more business to attend to, so I took a walk in the brisk sunshine to Newbury Yarns. Aldrich, the owner, was there and she helped me match up some more of the fire-red Manos I already have:

Now I have enough for a spicy, firey cardigan! Newbury is set-up by color. Wools, cottons, mohairs – all together by color. It’s a little bit strange – but if you were looking for something specific, I’m sure Aldrich would know where it is.

I found some Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn that I liked a lot:

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Feels a lot like Koigu. I think the colorway is Tropical Storm.

Peabody/Salem

I met Georgie back at the hotel and we rented a car. Georgie’s mom’s family is from Boston – his parents met while his father was a student at Hellenic College. They spent some time up in Peabody and Georgie used to spend a couple weeks in the summer there with his Godparents. They own a tannery. One of his favorite places up there is a roast beef/fried clam eatery called Land & Sea. I’ve been hearing about this place for over fifteen years. We weren’t able to make it up there when we got married, so we went this time. It was only about a 1/2 an hour away – and it was worth the trip.

We had roast beef and Georgie had his fried clams – I think his memory was satisfied. Then we drove around the city a little bit before heading off to Salem. Our first stop in Salem was The House of Seven Gables and Hawthorne’s birth house. We took a tour of the house – the tour guide was pretty goofy – and his name was Nate – but it was fun. Nice step back in time.

Then we headed over to the Salem Witch Museum. Now here’s a good time! The museum is basically a big room with life size dioramas around the walls. The room goes dark – and a loud booming voice comes over the loudspeaker to tell the fateful story of the Salem “witches.” It’s like a bad horror movie to be sure, and honestly, when I thought about it, it almost makes a joke of a very dark time in our history.

After all was said and done, I did buy a hat and a Scarlett Letter magnet:

And what would a road trip be without a stop in a yarn store?

Arbella Yarns

I received a warm welcome here, although I went through kind of quickly. (Georgie was waiting in the car.) I did manage to walk out with some more Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Yarn in Spring Frost.

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Boston

We had a lovely dinner that evening back in Boston, at a cozy little restaurant in Boston’s version of Little Italy – the North End. It was called Prezza. I’d highly recommend it.

The next morning we had some time to kill before the train, so we headed out to the Public Garden to see the ducks. I promised my nephew that I’d take pictures of the statue erected in honor of Robert McCloskey’s book Make Way for Ducklings.

Here we are:

It was FREEZING!

and here’s the ducks on their own:

We took the train home yesterday – the Acela Express. It was a wonderful weekend! Wish it had lasted longer. But that’s okay because in two weeks were off to Scottsdale, Arizona! All I have to say is it better be warm!

Hope you enjoyed our little trip…thanks for reading.
Love,
Cara

PS – Don’t forget! The new K1R2 Discussion has started – c’mon over!