Yarn Pr0n Friday Goes to the West Coast!

Only I didn't get stuck in a cave with Vincent Price because of some cursed tiki. No no, my vacation also yielded yarny goodness. Of course. My family is very supportive of my knitting hobby. The more stuff that gets gifted to them, the more supportive they get. Heh. Especially when it comes to the dishcloths, but hey, who doesn't love a handknit dishcloth? More on that this weekend. On to the pr0n. I had told my oldest sister that while I was in Seattle, on the only full day I'd be there before my parents arrived, that I'd like to check out a few yarn shops. My sister (the bride) had other running around to do and wasn't able to come with us, but she did pick me up a few skeins of yarny goodness while she was doing her errands. Below is some Moda Dea Dream and some Trendsetter yarn. The Dream she bought that day, the Trendsetter she'd had at home waiting for me. I see the Dream being a nice comfy wrap or triangular shawl of some sort. It's so freakin' soft. The Trendsetter, um, probably will go in wrap comprised of many different yarns of that sort. Like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Yarn Coat. In return I had gifted her with some pairs of novelty yarn that I had in my stash that I thought she'd enjoy. She's really attracted to that sort of yarn, so why not enable her right? Heh. Anyways... The first shop we hit was called Tricoter. Besides having an absolutely useless website (they list no address - just directions off the interstate - but we found it anyway). Here's what it looked like inside: Pretty huh? Yeah, pretty fuckin' frustrating to find anything in. As nice as sorting by color looks, and hiding all the labels, it's dumb as hell. What if you're one of those people hyper allergic to wool or animal fiber? You see something pretty and pick it up only to find it's 100% Alpaca? Umm...yeah. What if you want to make a sweater out of a specific yarn but don't know what color? Good luck finding that yarn in the first place, never mind all the colors they have of it. Anyway, off my rant and onto the yarn. I went to Tricoter for one thing and one thing only. Socks that Rock. I picked up the Lemongrass and the Tanzanite. There were a few more colors but these were the ones that called to me. Can you see why? So rich in color. So unique in tonal variations. Just lovely. I also picked up a little emergency sock yarn keychain that they had and a Black Sheep tape measure. The keychain is in another picture below somewhere. The next stop was Cultured Purls. After Tricoter, it was a sigh of relief. I chose this place because they had Lorna's Laces. I didn't buy any (I didn't see any that called to me, and barely any of the sock yarn variety). But I did get one small hank of Debbie Bliss Pure Silk. It was the only one left in this color and I couldn't put it down. I'll find something to do with it. Not sure what, but I'll figure something out. Oh, and I bought my nephew some yarn, needles and book here. He asked me to teach him how to knit on the car ride from Seattle to Oregon the next day! Of course I said yes! That's it for Seattle. Next stop. Oregon. As we arrived in Manzanita and were looking for the Inn we were staying at, I was looking out the window of the car and saw this: See that? <---Right there. QUALITY YARNS. Oh yeah. The whole back of the shop is a yarn shop. It's freakin' wonderful! And the name was even better! "Bad Woman Emporium" I loved it. And we were staying NEXT DOOR! (I may have mentioned it in passing before.) Holy Crap. It sucked my whole family in. My mom bought a lantern moon basket, and I got some sock yarn and a lantern moon bag. My Brother-in-Law even bought some yarn for some Fuzzy Feet he wants me to make! First, the sock yarn: I really tried on this trip to limit my yarn purchases to only the yarns I can't get or haven't seen yet at home. This Swizzle is one of those. The color selection wasn't great, but I liked this one well enough. I also picked up a pattern for a mobius scarf - only to catch up on watching Knitty Gritty and seeing that Cat Bordhi demonstrated her cast-on and a lacey pattern. Hmmph. And this pattern has me grafting and shit. Oh well. I'd rather do Cat's so maybe I can find someone that wants this other pattern. This is the Cascade 220 my Bro-in-Law chose for his Fuzzy Feet. Stripes. I managed to make a whole pair out of one hank for my sis with size 11 feet (oh crap, forgot to get a pic of the pre-felted finished object.) So I'm thinking I should be able to get 2 pairs out of this. Now, onto my new tradition. A knitting bag from each trip I take. I got one on my trip to D.C. to visit my sis and Trillian42 so I figured I should get one on this trip too. I like this new tradition. Hey, Stacey does it. The one on top is a Lantern Moon bag. Perfect for small projects like socks, or all the Fuzzy Feet I'll be knitting for Christmas. The one on the bottom is from "Baskets of Cambodia". Hey, Angelina Jolie collects children from there, I might as well collect their purses. That's about my speed. It's a purse, yes, but I see a potential sock bag for the pool. Why the pool? It's waterproof. Heh. Love it. And there you have my yarny swag from my trip. Yay!