Crawling around in Ft. Collins

Cynthia needed to head up to Ft. Collins/Loveland to Interweave Press to pick up a couple of books she had ordered. So (of course) she needed company. And (naturally) if we were going up there we were going to stop by a couple of the yarn shops in the area. So I took Wednesday off from work and went on a yarn crawl up north. Aside from the interesting driving situation (we got lost before each and every shop - figure we could have found one based on Yahoo directions, but no...) it was a great day. I love the area up there and I almost never get to go.

I've notice many knitters, particularly some friends of mine, that always buy a skein of yarn or a bag when out of town at a yarn shop. I've decided I collect enough yarn without going out of town and don't really need another excuse to buy more yarn but I'd like something to remember a shop by, particularly if I don't think I'll make it back. So I've settled on buttons. I love buttons, and each shop seems to carry at least one I've never seen elsewhere. It works.

The first place we stopped was Lambspun. We would have found it right off the bat, but Cyn and I were concentrating on where we needed to turn and not on the fact that Lambspun was on the corner of where we were turning and we ended up on a little tour of Ft. Collins. It's a beautiful shop and I'd highly recommend it to anyone in the area. Every time I thought I saw everything I noticed there was another room full of more stuff.

See it at flickr

The bamboo above is from my stash and will be what is leftover after the Lotus tank is done. I loved the scribble shawl and never thought to use ribbon instead of some bulky yarn until I saw the Mason Dixon book. So the Trendsetter Segue will go with my bamboo for a lovely shawl. I also picked up two buttons that you can see a bit better in the picture below.

Next up was My Sister Knits. A brand new shop and one we had a tough time finding, mostly because Sister was the only part of the name I was sure of. Very cute place though a bit odd because it's in a carriage house behind a regular house. We almost walked in the front door of the regular house before we notice the sign around the side. Oops. Still. Lovely people and beautiful yarn. And a cute button of course.

Next up was Woolen Treasures. We discovered that Loveland (a very lovely town) has multiple fourth streets. The one we found first lead us out to a very rural area and nearly dirt road. Wrong one. Sigh. We found it eventually of course.

The teal button give the appearance of wood with bark along the outside. They have quite a few different colors and I had a terrible time deciding which to get. The lime green, orange, and cranberry ones really called to me as well but I didn't want to get carried away. And my favorite find of the day is that horseshoe shawl pin made from copper and sitting there on top of some new needles. A local fellow makes them and they are simply beautiful. The pin goes through the shawl then slides in between the small slit he's created, then you twist the body of the pin around so that it stays in place. Just lovely.

And the last stop of the day was one of our LYS that I never seem to make it to. It's the Lamb Shoppe (another new one - in downtown Denver). This stop was more for my benefit so I didn't have to battle rush hour traffic home. I know. It's a semi-lame excuse. But it worked for me.

See it at flickr

I couldn't walk away from this skein of Cherry Tree Hill (what is it about this stuff??) and I decided to get a few more skeins of Nashua Jane as I like a cardigan pattern better than the tank top pattern I originally bought the yarn for.

Not too shabby for one day's work wouldn't you say?