Wednesday, April 14, 2010

A visit to my LYS: Knitters Mercantile

So I was recommended to my LYS (local yarn store), Knitters Mercantile by some of the folk on Ravelry.com. Not only is the place five minutes from our house, but comes with rave reviews.

Now I know, what you're thinking. "Magpie, you can't knit for squat?!" Well, you're right. I can make knit squares and rectangles, but a helpful sign outside the shop stated "Crochet Friendly Yarn Shop", so I was in!

I was greeted by a friendly lady who walked me over to the one item I actually needed, stitch markers. She didn't laugh when I stood, mouth agape, staring at the walls of amazing yarns.

And it really was a pretty vast variety of alpacas, wools, cottons, homespuns and novelty yarns. They had yarns from their $5.00 sale to the $43.00 silky handspun wools. I found that the average price was around $6 for the regular stuff and around $15 for the fancy handspun wools.

I have to say, there was quite a lot of gorgeous yarn there. And though it was primarily geared towards knitters, I felt pretty welcome.

The atmosphere was cozy and two separate women came in while I was shopping to show the shop owner their projects and she took each one and showed them how to fix their errors. She was patient and I heard her say "Well, I won't fix it for you, but I can show you how to fix it." It was clear to me she was not just there to make money, but to truly teach and share the love of the fiber arts.

That was like the clincher. I'm sold. And I recommend interested folk in the area to check it out too!

And for those of you into seeing my meager but exciting purchase:


GORGEOUSSSSSSSSSS!

4 comments:

  1. Do I see a silk blend? Gorgeous colorway. My favorite Merc staffer is Stephanie...she's fantastic. Welcome to your greatest desire...and the source of your greatest regret. As in, you regret you don't make a ton of money doing nothing so you can spend all your time buying yarn or hookin' with it.

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  2. @ Jessica - It's actually 50/50 Acrylic Poly blend that LOOKS like silk. I love it so much!

    And you're right, I regret not having faster hands to crochet with so I can bust my yarn stash at home!!

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  3. How nice! I really want to learn to knit too, but haven't found anyone who actually lives near enough to teach me!

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