The Yarn & Fiber Company

Recently, The Yarn & Fiber Company moved the whole store from Windham to the Clearbrook Center in Derry. I had been to the Y&F Co. a few times at the old location. And I took a lovely sock dying workshop there in 2007 with the owner of Cherry Tree Hill yarn company.

The new location is marvelous! I walked around and around the shelves of yarn, enjoying all of the colors. There is much more room at the new location. And there are two different areas for gathering. One is a sit, knit and chat area with upholstered chairs and couches and then there is a separate class area with a table.

I went Friday night because the Y&F Co. hosts a Friday night knitting event. Fiber enthusiasts can gather, knit and chat together while working on projects. It's a good time and a lot of the ManchVegas knitting members go. I just don't get to see that group as much as I would like since the normal knitting night for ManchVegas is Wednesday and it's too late of an evening for me on a work night.

I bought some new yarn on my visit to Y&F Co. last night, of course. I got some luxury angora in a light green so I could knit up some baby booties. The angora is so soft and I wish that it wasn't so expensive so I could make myself an adult size pair of booties. Lucas seems to be a fan of the angora as well. He stops to snuffle it when he walks by it in my knitting basket. And because my Madeline Tosh sock yarn in the peony colorway has just lasted forever, I bought a new skein in the Baltic colorway. I also got some Soak detergent so I can wash some of my more delicate hand knits in a pretty smelling cleaner.

Yarn, Fiber and Company

It's time to write another blog entry since my Mom sent me an e-mail wondering if I was busy and/or sick since she hadn't heard from me and there were no new blog entries to read. I got the hint, Mom!

I went to The Yarn & Fiber Company in Windham, NH for a Friday evening out knitting with friends in a yarn store. I picked up Alison in Suncook and Denise in Manchester on the way to Y&F. Obviously, you can't sit and knit in a yarn store without actually getting up, walking around and shopping. Y&F has a very ingenious scheme going on there. I have wanted to go down and join some of the ManchVegas knitters on a Friday night for some time now, but with the wedding planning it just never happened.

Here's a photo of the new loot I picked up. Half of the skeins were on sale, luckily. This is my first skein of the Smooshy sock yarn from Dream In Color and it is very soft. It's the dark blue/purple skein. This is also my first skein of the madelinetosh hand dyed sock yarn in a peony colorway. Yummy! I have a special project in mind for that skein, but can't mention it here because the recipient is a blog reader. But my knitty friends can learn all about it by logging into their ravelry account.

Going down to Y&F really got me thinking about my last (and first) trip to that yarn shop. Last April, I joined some of the ManchVegas girls and attended a class taught by Cheryl Potter (of Cherry Tree Hill in Vermont) and learned how to dye my own yarn. It was a crowded class, but it was so fun to get all of the dyes out and try to come up with a unique colorway all my own to bring some blah white sock yarn to something truly my own.

The biggest thing that I learned from the class was that I can't become a hand-dyer because I would spend all of my time staining myself, the house and sock yarn and would never actually get around to knitting. Besides, I know some people who dye on a regular basis and there's always Etsy to find the perfect colorway.

I did pull out the two skeins that I dyed myself so you could see my color genius. I don't have the creative naming down yet since the blue skein I call Blue. And the multicolor skein I originally called Paas, because it looked like I used the dye leftover from coloring Easter eggs. But that's probably a trademark infringement, so I had to change it to Easter Egg before I got a cease and desist order from the Paas company.