Airport coach seating has become so uncomfortable that I squirmed for more of my flight to San Francisco than I knitted. Had an inexpensive fare on United, but JetBlue is LOTS more comfortable. I do have half of the Perkins edging completed now. Not sure why it is going to so slowly. I switched from the Pony Pearl dps I was using to Crystal Palace bamboo because the points are much sharper and that has helped a lot.
What has prompted me to write from the road, though, is this amazing visit yesterday that I took to ArtFibers. It’s probably a good thing that I arrived only 45 minutes before they closed – I could have done a lot more damage had I been there longer. ArtFibers calls itself a yarn mill store but the place that that name conjures up is not at all like that. It’s more like a yarn boutique or atelier. The SF bloggers post about it all the time, but I wasn’t prepared for what I found – it was a delightful surprise.
It’s funny – I've become more of a yarn snob than I realized -- my preferences are often predictable by brand: Rowan, Colinette, Great Adirondack, Wool in the Woods, etc. I also generally shy away from synthetics – the Merino Stretch I’m using for the Apricot Jacket gave me initially pause because it’s a wool/acrylic combination. Everything at ArtFibers is ArtFibers. They have beautiful whole fibers – merinos, mohairs, alpaca, silks but they delight in man-made fiber too and mix with impunity. Each type of yarn has a great name – it would be really fun to be the person who names them. It will be a test of my skills at description, but I’m going to list my purchases (in no order of preference):
Toto (1) and Catnap (1) – this nylon tactel microfiber tape is about the softest stuff I’ve ever felt. The Catnap is a pure teal blue and the Toto is a subtly variegated version of the same color with darker shades of blue and almost black. I’m going to use them for a pair of fingerless gloves that they gave me a pattern for – a birthday/Hanukkah present for a young friend. They recommend these yarns for baby things and Catnap comes in baby colors – it is easy to envision as baby clothes or a blanket.
Sage (2) is a super baby alpaca/wool mix from Uruguay that they said would felt very well. I’m going to use it to try to fashion a couple of felted bowls to make for holiday presents. The color is a soft variegated combination of steel blue and lavender.
Sherlock (3) caught my eye because of its color, again a softly variegated combination of dark purple, aubergine, brown and black. It’s a mix of extrafine merino and silk, enough to make a scarf or some other small project.
Babushka (2) is an extrafine merino wool spun as a bulky chenille. It will make a great mobius scarf. The color is mostly black with deep eggplant highlights.
Sinbad (3) and Houdini (1) – I was totally carried away by the color combinations in these variegated yarns so I’ll describe it first. The website calls the Houdini color “Antiquity” and it feels like it belongs in pre-Renaissance Europe (Great Adirondacks Fluff comes in a colorway not dissimilar in feel called “Old English”). It is a mixture of blues, purples, greens, and golds that is almost indescribable. Houdini is a superwide nylon ribbon and when I say superwide, I mean it – it’s ¾” wide. Sinbad is a bulky 80/20 merino/nylon loopy yarn that has flecks of glitter in it that have been dyed along with the yarn, glitter in a very sexy, not garish way.
While everything I bought could be described as pretty muted in tone, ArtFibers appears to specialize in very bright colors, beautiful bright colors. I arrived close to closing and there were only a couple of other customers; I’m sure it’s regularly a lot busier. Both of the women working there could not have been nicer or more helpful. If you’re visiting San Francisco, don’t miss it. You can order yarn from their website, too, but without having been to the store, it would have been hard to get the true sense of these amazing fibers. It's located right downtown so it's very easy to get to.
After I click “post” on this entry, it’s time to get to the work I traveled here to do, but I can’t wait to get home to work with these yarns.
I'm so glad you mentioned ArtFibers in San Francisco. Thanks to you, I stopped in the other day on my yearly trip to the city and had a great time trying to decide among all the lovely yarns.
It's well worth a visit!
Maryvan
Posted by: Maryvan | December 03, 2004 at 04:10 PM