The 4th Annual Puget Sound Local Yarn Shop Tour was this weekend. Every year, hundreds of people, including people from as far as Florida, make the pilgrimage to this mecca of yarn. This year, 23 yarn shops participated, each offering a free pattern, a 10%-off deal on the yarn for that pattern, and a daily drawing for a $50 prize. People that went to all 23 shops during the tour were also eligible for a number of grand prizes. This was the first year I participated.

Last Thursday afternoon, I met two of my knitting group friends, Aubri and Fay, at Weaving Works, the yarn store I visit most often as it's only two blocks from my apartment. It's one of my very favorite places. Although the yarn is not organized the way I'd like, almost all the yarns are displayed with a label showing gauge, recommended needle size, and price AND a sample knitted swatch. I wasn't going to get anything there, but then a peach/green/purple variegated yarn caught my eye. It was Jojoland Melody yarn and reasonably priced, so I ended up getting two skeins to make a pair of socks.

Jojoland Melody yarn:


From there, Fay drove us to Wallingford to Bad Woman Yarn, which I'd also been to before. They had a small selection of mostly luxury yarns and a number of beautiful Norah Gaughan sweaters on display. Afterwards, we stopped at Trophy Cupcakes. I had a margarita cupcake, which was tastier than most of the cupcakes I'd had there, but the frosting was still too sweet and disgustingly heavy and the cake was a bit dry and tasteless. We noticed that the store was displaying the cutest Seattle cupcake-themed drawings by Jessie Oleson. See her art at Cake Spy. Another knitting group friend, Desiree, joined us after the cupcakes.

We then drove to Greenwood to The Fiber Gallery. I had never been there before. It was an impressive library of yarn.

After Fiber Gallery, we went to Full Circle in Ballard, which I had never visited before either. This yarn store seemed like it had been frozen during the '70s. Cupcake Royale, with their vastly superior cupcakes, was close at hand, but we were cupcaked out.

The next stop was Hilltop Yarn in Queen Anne. This is one of my favorite yarn stores in Seattle. The decor is modern, cozy, and artistic; there was a really cute display of Japanese yarn filling a sink with blue and white yarn streaming out of the faucet. They had fresh raspberry lemonade for the customers.

Our last stop of the night was down in West Seattle at the Seattle Yarn Gallery. It was my first time there. They had a pretty large selection. I bought a pattern for an adorable stuffed beet. I have a thing for knitted fruits and vegetables.

Stuffed beet pattern:


It took us about three hours to go to six stores. We finished around 8 pm and had a late dinner at a Mexican place that looked like a cafeteria on the inside. I had a decent veggie burrito.

Thursday route map:


After my class was over on Friday, I set out at 11 am to do a solo tour of six yarn stores. The first one was Tricoter Knitting Specialists. I didn't know this, but "tricoter" is French for "to knit." This store was horribly organized. Most yarn stores are organized by brand, fiber content, or weight. This store was organized by color. Huge piles of random yarn were stashed on shelves in no discernible order (except by color), and there were no labels on the shelves conveying any information about the yarns. The whole arrangement seemed designed to dissuade people from touching the yarn.

Then I drove to Bellevue to Hilltop Yarn East, which was the only shop that I visited on Friday that I'd been to before. This store has a nice, welcoming vibe, similar to its sister store in Queen Anne. They have a lot of Rowan yarn, which is gorgeous but tends to be expensive. I stumbled across some lovely Mirasol yarn that I vowed to buy someday when I find a pattern for it. By then, it was lunchtime, so I stopped at a Starbucks for a egg/cheese/spinach/mushroom pastry thing that was quite tasty and a passion tea lemonade that tasted strongly of coffee and milk.

I got back on the road and drove to Issaquah. It was a beautiful day, the temperature was just right, the mountains were visible, and Lake Sammamish looked beautiful. Cultured Purls was located in a quaint-looking shopping village. The yarn was cleverly displayed on hooks.

From there, I drove to Knittery in Renton. I found some Berroco Ultra Alpaca at a good price in just the right shade (light heathered blue with a bit of purple) that I had in mind for Norah Gaughan's Vortex Street Pullover. I bought 7 skeins of it.

Berroco Ultra Alpaca yarn:


My next stop was down in Kent at Renaissance Yarns. This lovely yarn store was in a huge shopping center, Kent Station. They had salmon canapes for the customers. I ate two.

The last shop I went to on my own was The Yarn Stash in Burien. It was not the best-stocked store, but the salespeople were especially friendly. They gave me a bunch of coupons, hoping to entice me back there.

My solo yarn tour took longer than I had anticipated, and I didn't start driving back to Seattle until after 3 pm. At that point, Friday afternoon traffic had started. I was meeting friends at the ferry leaving for Bainbridge Island at 4:40 pm. My original plan had been to drive home, rest, and take the bus to the ferry terminal. However, there was no time for that, so I drove straight to the ferry. During the wait for the ferry, I got a berry mango smoothie at a stand by the terminal. After I parked my car on the ferry, I went and found Aubri, Fay, and Liz already settled and knitting on the passenger deck. The ferry took about 35 minutes to get to Bainbridge Island.

We went to dinner first at Harbour Public House. As we were waiting for a table, a tall, friendly-looking, blonde woman walked by me. She smiled at me, and I realized she was Elizabeth Mitchell. She still looked exactly like her character on "Lost." She was sitting with a man who looked vaguely familiar at the table beside ours. Over at our table, we shared some poutine (with chicken gravy and Beecher's cheese curds), and I had a warm spinach salad. The food was delicious, and the view of the mountains, trees, and water was great.

After dinner, we went to Churchmouse Yarns & Teas. The people there were lovely, and the yarn was glorious. They had a lot of sock yarn. All of the customers were offered a glass of sherry and either got a tape measure or a tea sampler as a gift. I chose the tea.

After yarn, we stopped by Mora, which makes gourmet ice cream. I got dark chocolate, which was very dark and very chocolate-y, and strawberry, which tasted exactly like fresh strawberries. After our satisfying dinner, yarn stop, and ice cream, we caught the 8:10 pm ferry back to Seattle. When I got home, I IMDB'd Elizabeth Mitchell. She and her family live on Bainbridge Island.

Friday route map:


We met at 9:30 am on Saturday to drive north. Beth drove Fay and Liz. Desiree's husband James drove Desiree, Aubri, and me. It took about 1.5 hours to drive to Bellingham. It was another perfect day for driving. We went to NW Handspun Yarns first. They had plenty of yarn, looms, spinning wheels, and roving for sale, but disappointingly, no handspun yarn.

We went to the cleverly named Mount Bakery (Mt. Baker is near Bellingham) for lunch. We shared a pot of rooibos herbal chai tea, and I had an absolutely scrummy breakfast crepe (ham, egg, Swiss, herbs) and simple salad. While we were looking at yarn, James had gone to a used book shop and bought lots of trashy fun sci-fi novels with questionable covers.

After lunch, we stopped at Apple Yarns, which had a very good selection. I lusted after decadently soft Mirasol and Manos del Uruguay yarn but resisted temptation.

Then we got back on the road and drove to Burlington to Knot Just Yarn. Their free pattern was Dragonskin Legwarmers, which I'm going to make for my mom. (She wears legwarmers under her pants every day during winter.) James continued his book tour, as every yarn shop we visited seemed to be near a book shop.

The next stop was in Mount Vernon for Wild Fibers. They had a good selection, lots of Rowan, and the yarn was well-organized by brand.

From there, we drove to Everett to go to Great Yarns, which was not that great. Their stock seemed to consist mainly of novelty yarns (i.e. impractical yarns that few people want to use) and cashmere yarns (i.e. expensive yarns that few people can afford). They had a bargain basement that was stuffed from floor to ceiling with yarn still in plastic bags.

The last stop was at Village Yarn & Tea in Shoreline. The yarn selection was good, and it was cool that they had a sit-down area for drinking tea, knitting, and resting.

We called it a day at 6 pm. We didn't go to Beach Basket Yarn & Gifts in Blaine, because it was too far north (near the Canadian border). We skipped Ana Cross Stitch in Anacortes, which would have added an hour to the trip. And we didn't go to Main Street Yarn in Mill Creek, because we were all yarned out.

Saturday route map:


Today, I went to one final yarn store, Acorn Street Shop, which is near the University Village. They had a great, well-organized selection of yarn, and the shelves were clearly marked with large labels showing the gauge and price. Maybe it was pent-up yarn lust or maybe it was the fact that they had the right yarns in the right colors at the right prices, but I bought nearly $100 worth of yarn there. I got seven skeins of Tahki Yarns Jeans in a light blue-gray for making Norah Gaughan's Snapping Turtle Skirt and six skeins of Silky Wool in a grayish blue-green for making Knitty's Camden.

Tahki Jeans yarn:


Silky Wool yarn:


Acorn Street Shop location:


The LYS tour was tiring but fun. I discovered many new yarns that I can't wait to knit with, and I learned to love multi-color yarns, especially Noro, and sock yarns.

My passport for the 2009 Puget Sound LYS Tour (20 out of 23 shops visited):


See Fay's much more yarn-and-pattern-detailed account of the tour here.