If you are in Colorado, then stop reading now and head to Yarn Along the Rockies. Otherwise, check it out here: www.yarnalongtherockies.com and then keep reading. And be very very jealous.
A very fortuitous google search for activities to fit in around (instead of??) my trip to the Conference of Government Mining Attorneys in Golden, Colorado turned up Yarn Along the Rockies, a yarn crawl to 24 different local yarn stores from Boulder to Colorado Springs and as far west as Evergreen. As you well know, I hate yarn and hardly have any, so I thought eh what the hey, I'll check it out.
Just kidding, I am a major yarn hoarder. I brought 4 skeins just on this trip. One per day.
My regrets about Yarn Along the Rockies are as follows: I forgot to take a picture at each store, and I only made it through 16 of the 24!
I kicked off my crawl at I Love Knitting in Denver. Even though I don't love knitting, as I have mentioned before, the store was delightful, people were knitting, yarn was on sale, and best of all I got my Project Tote Bag and my very first pin for it! Each store had a special pin to place on the bag. Here's my completed (complete for me) bag:
I love it!
As you can see from the bag, I made it through the Boulder, Denver, Englewood, Littleton, and Centennial stores. Not too shabby. Had Delta not been creative with my departure and arrival times on Sunday, I still believe I could have made it through the whole lot, but oh well. I saw many people just pop in, get their passport stamped and pin, and duck back out. I may have only gone to 16 but at least I got to really spend some time going through the stores, and getting lots of ideas!
Another great thing (as if it wasn't already great enough) is that each store was giving away a prize basket, in addition to the prizes you were eligible if you finished the crawl. But even if I don't win a prize, I basically made a prize basket of my own!
I needed all this.
I discovered and fell in love with alpaca yarn on this trip. The green variegated yarn in the front I bought at Blazing Saddle Ranch in Englewood from a lovely woman who raises the alpacas, shears them, spins the wool into yarn, and hand dyes it. I love this yarn so much that I almost feel bad touching it with hooks or needles. Almost.
I was pumped to find the giant double ended ended hooks I needed for a pattern at Shuttles, Spindles, & Skeins in Boulder, and a huge afghan hook at The Recycled Lamb in Golden. I got a great deal on a pattern book at Wooden Spools in Englewood, and I was pumped to see a huge yarn class going on at A Knitted Peace in Littleton! At Mew Mew's in Lafayette, I was sad to miss the cat, but she gave me the great idea to do a pattern of stitches or colors in a number that's significant to you like your phone number, social security number, birthdate, etc. So if I were to use my birthdate, I would do 9 rows of red, 6 rows of blue, 1 row of yellow, 9 rows of green, 8 rows of purple, 4 rows of orange, and repeat. If I were to use my social security number, it would be... just kidding.
What was the best part though, was meeting and talking to so many likeminded women who were interested in yarn and what you can do with it. In Lexington, Kentucky, where I live, we just don't have the kind of stores and community I experienced on this trip. All in all it was a fantastic experience! Though it seems that not everyone felt the same way:
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