We began the crawl Saturday morning at 9 am and finished Sunday night at 5:30 (30 minutes to spare). Another group member, Sarah, followed along in her own car (she had plans later but wanted to hit as many stores as she could.) Next year we hope to have a bigger group. It's a lot of fun. Even when the Knitagator makes everyone stay to the schedule.
Our van was the big hit of the crawl. Store owners and employees heard about our van and wanted pictures, at least half of all our stops included posing with the van.
We spent the most time at the first stop-Alamitos Bay Yarn Company and the Yarn Over Truck. First by posing with the van:
Then by going through "Candyland" at Alamitos and taking selfies with the Gingerbread man for extra drawing entries.
Me
Bessie
Me again
I planned our route, taking into consideration the Hollywood marathon and another event in LA-Civivla-both of which were guaranteed to cause traffic nightmares.
We went to 16 stores on Saturday-spending no more than 15 minutes per store and eating lunch on the go.
I have no idea which store this is.
This scarf was on display at Twist, Yarns of Intrigue. The yarn surrounding it is their own hand dyed yarn. It reminds me of Malabrigo. Soft and luscious.
It would take a daring woman to wear a knit bikini...
At Gather DTLA, in the hallway outside the shop, we found an art installation-made of yarn. Looks like a giant web.
Gather is located inside a book store on Spring and 5th. This area is always a traffic nightmare and parking is impossible. Unless you pay to park in one of the lots. We choose to have our wonderful driver, Bessie, drop us off so we could run up to the store for stamps in our passports. We paid to park last year and were not interested in repeating that. ($15 for 5 minutes). Parts of 5th and Spring are closed to traffic on Sundays for the farmers market. Add to that the closures for CivivLA and we were't taking the chance that our schedule would be messed up.
After downtown we headed back towards Santa Monica and went to the shop on the crawl and then the pop up shop at Wildfiber. Wildfiber was set to close the week before the crawl and someone stepped in at the last minute and purchased the shop-saving it. It's a fun shop. They decided to do a pop up shop and had a book signing by Mel Clark. Joan and I both picked up her book "Knitting Everyday Finery" and had Mel sign them.
Then it was back on the road for more stores. During the crawl, we had stretches of 30 minutes to 5 minutes while driving where we were able to knit or crochet. I began the Monsoon shawl for my knitting group knit a long. I made it to the section before the lace-about 52 rows in.
We spent the night at a hotel Saturday night. Hung out in the hot tub for a couple of hours to unwind and then hit the sack.
Sunday morning we were up early, had breakfast and hit the road in time to get up to Santa Clarita well before their opening at 10 am. Creative U is the store in Santa Clarita and it was our favorite. Of course it is also the farthest from us at an hour without traffic and probably a 3 hour drive with traffic. They had the best selection of Cascade and Rowan yarns in LA county. They do a knit night on Friday nights that sounds like it would be a ton of fun. We're already planning a Saturday day trip up to Creative U. And given them fair warning that we'll be heading up to hang all day on their couches. The owner was lovely and said we're welcome to stay as long as we'd like.
I love this bear. I'll have to knit one for my Mom-she loves bears.
Here he is in his habitat. Looks like the perfect place to hang out.
Here is Joan and Lisa, I believe at Twist, Yarns of Intrigue. Check out Lisa's newly finished Spectra. It's gorgeous.
No comments:
Post a Comment