Today was the Guild’s Yarnover event and also the Textile Center’s garage sale. Yarnover had a nice selection of vendors. There were a couple vendors with really gorgeous hand-dyed yarns. One was Silk Road North Woods (from St Paul) - they have really interesting blends, like Chinese cashmere, cashmere/silk, Chinese Bactrian camel wool, and camel/silk. They also have some really cool looking wood needles that are dyed or something. I think Needlework Unlimited carries some of their yarns. The other one of note was Lucky Noodle Yarns (from Minneapolis) - her ‘Softylofty’ yarn is SUPER soft. neither of them is online quite yet, but both have emails.
after browsing the vendors, I ran back to the car (did I mention it was pouring rain most of the day?!) and headed over to the Textile Center. by the time I got there, any yarn selection they might have had had been picked thru quite thouroughly, but I did find a few (old) pattern booklets from the ’70s (well, two are dated - the third the models look VERY 70’s, if not late 60’s era) - one is knee high socks (argyle & cable patterns) and the other two are sweaters/cardiagans with aran (and other) designs. About the time I found the magazine corner, they started shooing us out so they could prepare for the bag sale (everything you could cram in a bag for $1). I really didn’t feel like trying to go back in, so I headed out. (running across the street to my car, still in the rain)
I got on I94 and was headed home, but shortly after I switched onto I35W, traffic hit a dead-stop and then a snail-pace. *sigh* so I decided to jump ship and exited early - which just so happened to be the road that one of the LYS is on/near. unfortunately, there’s a lake in the way, so I had to drive around the lake (so much for the ‘perfect’ timing of getting off on that street). Happily, they had the Magic Friends pattern that I’d been coveting for awhile. I also picked up a couple ‘by the gram’ hanks (10g & 13g) of Koigu. I have no idea how much yarn that equals. (the 10g skein has at least 19 yds, by my crude measurement system. what does one make with the equivilant of half a skein of sock yarn?!) any suggestions?
the pattern books // a bit of the Magic Friends pattern
Koigu mini-skeins // close-up
Sorry you missed out on the Addis; they were at the Earthsong Fibers booth (beside the much flashier Yarn Garage). They don’t have the discounted Addis on their website, but they will be at the Shepherd’s Harvest Sheep and Wool festival May 7-8th at the fairgrounds. It looks like they are mostly a spinning and weaving company, so perhaps they are trying to dump their knitting stock.
Koigu is 50g = 170 yds (one sock), so if the measurements are accurate, you have about 17 yds in one hank and 22-23 yds in the other, about 30 yds total. I would say enough for wristlets or accents on another sock — there are tons of other ideas in the comments section here: http://alison.knitsmiths.us/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=949 .