Blueberries & Lace

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A few weeks ago, my best friend Kristen took me to a yarn store by her house, Fiber Arts Studio, located in Northfield, New Jersey. The staff was amazingly friendly, the yarn selection ranged from novelty to classic yarns, and the pattern selection was overwhelming.

It's a store I would definitely visit again, however, my personal LYS, Woolbearers, will always be first in my heart. Maybe it's because Woolbearers was the first real yarn store I ventured into, or because the owners, Suzie & Myra are amazingly sweet women who offer personalized service, or because they dye their own yarns, which I just love. [By the way, you can now buy Woolbearer's hand dyed yarns here. And if you're ever in the Mount Holly area, be sure to stop in and say hello!]

I rarely walk into a yarn store without a game plan. I learned early on how dangerous that is for me. If I don't have an idea of what projects I'm looking for that perfect yarn for, if I just blindly give in to impulse buys, I almost always regret them. Because the yarn ends up sitting around for months, making me feel guilty. As it is, the majority of the time I purchase a yarn for something specific, it gets used for something else entirely!

However, I walked into Fiber Arts Studio without any ideas. I wasn't even sure I would walk out with yarn, as this was during that period of time where I was still sick and didn't have the energy to even look at my knitting.

Luckily, the women who worked there were so friendly, so full of ideas, and so excited to be surrounded by yarn, I quickly remembered why I loved knitting and how much I loved yarn.

I walked out with the Lace Leaf Shawl Pattern by Fibertrends, and enough Berroco Softwist to knit a large shawl. My yarn purchase surprised me, I rarely go for anything that isn't a natural fiber, and the Softwist, well, it's 59% rayon.

While the one woman who worked there wound my yarn into balls for me, (a process that in itself took longer than any of us anticipated due to the final hank being so knotted up), Kristen and I grabbed our knitting and settled in for a bit. It was a lovely afternoon, and my first time knitting in a yarn store. [I've knit in public before, just never in a yarn store.]

When I got home, I didn't even look at the pattern, after all there were many other projects, both knitting and cross stitching that were intended gifts, ahead of anything for myself in the queue. Days later, when I pulled the pattern out, I realized it was incomplete. I was worried, as this was the last copy they had in the store, however when I called them to let them know, they quickly jumped into action. They called their sister store in Cape May, got a copy and mailed it down to me.

After eyeing up the pattern and the yarn, I finally gave in a few days ago. I cast on to swatch. The yarn, well I doubt I be purchasing it again anytime soon, it's splitty, doesn't feel too soft on my hands while knitting it, and it's slippery as hell on the needles. But in the end, I think it'll make a nice shawl, and I'm looking forward to being able to wrap myself up in this one soon.

[Picture of my swatch, visiting me at work. Click to enlarge.]

For those wanting more specifics on the Softwist, it's a 59% Rayon/41 % Wool Blend. 100 yds per hank. Worsted Weight.

On the cross stitching front, I do have a project in the works. Joe's father remarried over the weekend, and after expressing my sometimes insane need to craft gifts rather than buy them, Joe and I decided on a custom made cross stitch. His father owns a blueberry farm, so I'm cross stitching a sign to hang in the office. It's a little nerve wracking as I'm kind of just winging it as I go along, but so far it looks good.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but there's a lot of really cool shading. What looks black isn't all black, it varies from black to a dark royal blue. I'll take a better picture when it's all finished, but in the mean time, this will have to do. As always, click to enlarge!