Adventures in Yarn Shopping

Our vacation is starting to wind down (we leave on Saturday), and after a very active first few days, we had a relatively quiet day today. We all slept in and then took a trip to the Cape Cod Potato Chip factory. It's a quick self-guided tour, but it was something we'd never done before. We had lunch at "home" (the rental condo) and relaxed a bit, and then this afternoon I convinced the Mister to take me and Rainbow to the nearest LYS, Adventures in Knitting, which I'd spotted the very first day we arrived when we went to the local supermarket to stock up on food for the week. Don't let the fairly mediocre Web site fool you -- it's a great shop!

There was a wide variety of yarn to be found -- Berroco, Plymouth, HiKoo, the Fibre Company, Swan's Island, Madelinetosh, and other more mainstream yarn companies in addition to some more rustic yarns spun from sheep from farms in Brewster, Mass., and Nantucket.

They also had a large selection of buttons, needles from Addi and Knitter's Pride, and a sizeable wall of tools and notions. I petted and squished many skeins but was determined to buy something local that I couldn't get at home or online. This fit the bill perfectly:

This skein of 90% superwash merino/10% nylon is from the Cape Cod Yarn Co. and is exclusive to this shop. The colorway is called Seaweed, and it's a generous 480 yards -- plenty for a decently sized shawl or a pair of socks. I also bought a little something for Rainbow:

We found these teeny skeins of My First Regia in the back, with the sale yarns (they're marked $4, but they were actually $3 each). Each skein is 25 g and about 115 yards, so that should be plenty to make Rainbow a pair of socks -- something she's been asking me to make her for a while. I think when we get home, I'll make a template of her foot and make her a pair of toe-up Fish Lips Kiss Heel socks. They'll probably only fit her for a month or two, but at least they should be fun to knit!

I'm moving right along on my projects. I now have one sock done and am well on my way on the leg of sock number two, and I'm more than halfway through the sleeve increases on my tee. Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be not so great, so perhaps it will be a good excuse to get in a bit of extra knitting time. If not, we have the long drive back to Boston to catch our flight home on Saturday, plus the flight, plus the drive home from the airport. I'm determined to meet my Stash Dash goal, even if I have to spend every last minute knitting!