James River Yarn Crawl Part 2 - Yarn Matters

Did you participate in the James River Yarn Crawl?  Six yarn shops located between Ashland and Virgnia Beach participated.  I was only able to visit three of them, but three was enough!

sciencephoto.com

My plan was to visit a few, buy a few smaller priced items and end up at my local yarn shop where I'd spend the bulk of my yarn budget.  That didn't exactly happen.

It was a beautiful day for a drive and my daughter accompanied me.  Being the sweet, good girl that she is, she volunteered to drive so that I could knit on the road.  Our first stop was at Yarn Matters.

yarnmatters.com

We took the scenic route down Rt. 60 rather than fighting the traffic and construction on I64.  We arrived much quicker than expected (Sarah was driving after all!) and we had no trouble finding the shop.  

Yarn Matters is a smallish shop, but Oh!  The Malabrigo wall!  One whole wall, one whole, large wall was nothing but Malabrigo.  Have I ever mentioned my passion for Malabrigo's yarns?  Poor Sarah.  She's not a knitter.  She tries very hard to have patience with me in yarn shops after all, trips to the yarn store frequently end up turning into a new hat, gloves, a scarf or a pair of socks for her.  But as I pulled skein after skein of Malabrigo off the wall you could see her will to live shrink moment by moment.  She was a pretty good sport about it though.  She helped by putting skeins back almost as quickly as I took them down off the shelf while I tried to make a purchasing decision.

yarn haul

Remember my plan to spend only $20 - $30 at this shop?  Yeah, that didn't happen.  But it could have been a WHOLE lot worse!

Pictured from top to bottom...

475 yards of the softest fingering weight Superwash Merino from Neighborhood Fiber Co. in the Edgewood colorway.  It's not showing up well in the photo but it's greens and blues and black.  Sarah and I may come to blows over who gets to be the proud owner of whatever I knit this into.

480 yards of Ewe So Happy Sparkle Sock yarn from Tempting Ewe Yarns.  What looks like dust in the photo is actually sparkle.  The yarn is a superwash merino base with a little Stellina spun into it.  The yarn's color is Exhausted and it is also greens, blues and black.  It's only very slightly lighter in color than the Neighborhood Fiber Co. yarn, but it sparkles.  It's name is Exhausted and it sparkles!  Does it get any better than that?  Yes, actually it does.  Sarah doesn't like her knitted items to sparkle which makes this one mine.  All mine!

440 yards of sock/fingering weight Malabrigo Superwash Merino which has been kettle dyed in Velvet Grapes.  It's not my normal choice of color but I saw it and just had to have it.  Just Had to!  It's purpley maroons and deep dark pinks and looks like someone spilled a bottle of red wine all over an expensive, and very absorbent, antique table cloth.  I can not wait to knit something with this yarn.  If only I had a clue what I wanted to knit.

And last but definitely not least, another Malabrigo merino sock yarn in the colorway Aniversario.  It's a muted, every color in the crayon box multi color.  This is another skein that Sarah and I "agreed" on which means, we'll be fighting over it later.

I also picked up a stitch marker made specially for the yarn crawl (which is blending into the background in the photo) and was gifted a Yarn Matters pin for shopping there during the crawl.

If you ever find yourself in the Williamsburg, Virginia area, be sure to stop by Yarn Matters.  It's a wonderful little shop, run by a sweet, friendly and helpful shop owner and it's located not far from the Williamsburg Visitor's Center.  The shop is also located dangerously close to my mother-in-law's house so, Yikes!  I'm going to have to show a Lot of restraint every time I visit her.