Friday, March 20, 2009

It's Been Awhile

Yes, it's been a while since I actually wrote anything about knitting. It's been all about the trip, but things are back to "normal". While away I had the opportunity to visit several yarn shops along the way. One thing is certain you most always find people with a love for all things yarn & willing to talk about it...at length.

As most people do when they travel I love to bring back some kind of remembrance from the trip. Since this trip was going to be of some length and space was an issue I decided that buying special yarns would suit my purposes perfectly. Our first stop was Taos, New Mexico where I visited La Lana Wools shop. It was sensory overload as I wandered around looking at the collection of beautiful yarns. The colors were amazing...all dyed naturally from various plants. Quite a bit of the yarn was hand-spun. What to select was rather overwhelming...but of course I did choose something. By the time we left Taos I had 3 beauties in various shades of red sprinkled with some gold, along with a gold worsted weight yarn to mix with it and 2 skeins of an indigo dyed "sock weight" yarn. Stay tuned for what I'll use these for in the future...


Next we headed North up to Laramie, Wyoming and a little shop right in the downtown area called Jeny's Originals. I found the illusive bisondown which is more expensive than cashmere and to add to it the equally expensive lambswool. These yarns are super soft and warm...thinking I only have enough for a hat or cowl, but I really didn't want to blow the budget all for bison. A sweater's worth would have ran well over $300! Geez!


What do you think of when you here Montana? Is it Mountain Colors? You betcha...lots of it can be found at The Yarn Shop & Fiber Place in Bozeman, Montana. Along with the 13 Mile and the most scrumptious alpaca yarn from Black Wolf Ranch I sorta went crazy. I ended up with 3 skeins of 13 Mile in oatmeal, 2 skeins of lace weight alpaca from Black Wolf Ranch in a yummy dark charcoal and a skein of Mountain Colors in Bearfoot's 'crazy woman'...a truly appropriate name in my case. I so enjoyed my conversation in the shop with Jane...thanks so much for being so helpful in pointing out exactly the right items. All Made in Montana!


Mountain Colors Bearfoot's "Crazy Woman"










13 Mile in oatmeal






Black Wolf Ranch's fiber donated by Flannery & Grey Flannel...thanks so much! More coming in another post. Afterall I do have 'work' to do...yeah I hear all of y'all laughing.

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