Wasatch Yarn Shop Hop: Part II

Who can resist a challenge? Today's weather was crazy snowy yucky, but that didn't stop me, a still relatively unexperienced driver, to take our brand new car and drive it through the snow to unfamiliar areas in Salt Lake Suburbia.

My first stop was at Unwind, a LYS in Sandy (think Big Love) that shares a space with a funky jewelry/art/furniture shop.

Don't mind the gloomy atmosphere; that's just the weather. The interior is bright and cheerful and happy, and so is owner Corinne, who is totally into the Yarn Shop Hop's book theme and chose Dr. Seuss's Lorax. One of the free patterns is Lorax himself, made of Berroco Vintage and Katia Baltika:

I thought him so fantabulous that I got the yarn. When I mentioned that my gauge is usually off, Corinne gave me a few extra feet of Baltika (the fuzzy stuff), just to make sure I wouldn't run out. Now, that's cool! I enjoyed talking to her, and I liked her store. Corinne's definitely got a love for Cascade and Berroco yarns--there were more different yarns by each company than I knew existed, which doesn't mean all that much: I'm a faithful 220 and Ultra Alpaca knitter and don't usually explore beyond those staple yarns. This may change though. (I have my eye on Cascade Alpaca Lace. And Cascade Pure Alpaca. Just hand over an alpaca herd, please.) Corinne also likes local yarns, and besides Cascade and Berroco she keeps smaller batches of local or otherwise interesting yarns (such as hemp yarn, recycled silk yarn, and very artsy ribbon yarn, all by Darn Good Yarn). She has a variety of Katia yarns, but those are leftovers from before a recent store makeover, when she carried more novelty yarns. Now she is expanding on spinning supplies and even carries silk hankies! (Perhaps you vaguely remember that during one hot summer month in 2010, while getting more pregnant by the minute and thus more hormonal, I picked up a drop spindle and some fleece and gave it a go. It didn't go too well, but now I'm thinking that I wouldn't mind taking a class and learn it properly. Unwind would be a good place to do so.)

While in Sandy I also visited the other LYS there, Unraveled Sheep.

Unraveled Sheep's theme this week is The Wizard of Oz, and many yellow bricks took me through this well-stocked store to a bunch of happy knitters and a fluffy little dog curled up in front of a fire (the dog was curled up, not the knitters). Mary Triplett is the designer-in-residence, and it is perhaps of her love for colorful fair isle tams that the store has a wide selection of Elemental Affects yarns. Also present: Cascade (lots of it!) and Berroco, Rowan, Sublime, Debbie Bliss, some Noro and some Koigu, Filatura di Crosa, and Elsebeth Lavold. And a lot of other yarns. And magazines. Booklets. Books. In sum: this is quite the store.

Stay tuned to hear about my trip to Kamille's and Three Wishes Fiber Arts (I won't mention how lost I got. Suburbia is evil)!