Last week Joyce — my dear friend and fellow knitter — and I headed off on a 2-day road trip through “Yarn Land”!  We usually celebrate our birthdays (hers in late April and mine in mid May) by “doing something fun.”  So, when we discovered that the Spring PNW Yarn Crawl was scheduled for smack dab between our special days, we decided to go for it.  Nine shops in two days.  

And it was fabulous!  Joyce drove and I helped out with some iPhone a navigation — lots of laughter and witty repartee — and we trekked up to Poulsbo and out to the wilds of Allyn and back through Gig Harbor, landing in Lakewood the first day.  Then off south the next day to Chehalis and back north to Olympia and out to Fife (that was the alpaca farm!), finishing up in Tacoma.  Scooping up free patterns while chatting with other knitters and the oh so gracious shop owners — and, of course, buying yarn 🙂

While some of the shops were favorites we had visited before, there were some terrific discoveries too — such as Ewe and I in Chehalis which was a complete delight and where we met independent dyer Lynette Connors of Willamette Valley Wool Company whose yarns were exquisite!  

It was perfect to finish up at Fibers Etc. In Tacoma as were eagerly anticipating checking out their new digs on Hood Street.  Fibers Etc has always been a treasure trove of yarn, but now it is expansive as well with large well-lit rooms of yarn opening off a vast central space filled with shelves of yarn.  It feels like all the yarn in the whole wide world is displayed there — an incredible range of fibers, weights, brands, specialties.  

We got our passports stamped at each location — and as “finishers” (who had made it to all 9 shops during the Yarn Crawl) were given souvenir project bags and entered into the final drawing for gift certificates.  And by then we were totally exhausted, our brains utterly saturated — and all I wanted to do was go home and knit 🙂

Thank you, Joyce, for our adventure!