Yarn crawl, year 2

photo credit to the fabulous LEO of Hungry Knitter

 Yesterday our regular group of knitters drove off on an excellent adventure (no Bill or Ted involved, unfortunately) to several yarn stores in Chicago. Along the way we picked up a couple of visitors who fit right in with the group; seriously, have you ever met a knitter you couldn't get along with? I haven't yet. We started with brunch at a cute cafe where we filled every available seat and moved on shortly thereafter to the yarn fondling and yarn purchasing portion of the day. Check out my haul below:
 

Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light in Vanilla Bean

Marks and Kattens Fame trend in colorway Party
(I did not notice that name yesterday, but it only would have made me more eager to purchase the yarn!)

Noro Kureyon in color 267, one I hadn't seen before and which I love

My new yarns are from Windy Knitty and Knit 1.  Both stores were new to me, and both were pretty great.  Windy Knitty has a fantastic selection, including a number of yarns I haven't seen in person before, and the shop space is really large and welcoming.  Knit 1 was a more cozy space, also with friendly and welcoming staff and some really pretty colorways of Noro and sock yarn. I would happily go back to either shop at the drop of a hat.

We made a relatively quick stop at Sifu, which was not my favorite, although they had a ton of interesting handspun that made me feel even more inspired about picking up my drop spindle again... and dropping it. Ha.  I didn't make any purchases there, but I found some cool drawers full of interesting items.

I also picked up some ribbon and buttons at an amazing store called Soutache, and I'll share those in a bit when their purpose becomes clear. I made that sound really mysterious, but all it means is that I am not sure what I'll be using them for.

There was also car knitting, of course, so pictures of my latest super-fast FO will be coming up tomorrow... Hope you have a wonderful Monday!