The Glorious Haul from NYC: Part II

Yarn.

Lucious, wonderful yarn. (I say this like I live in some remote area of the globe where yarn is impossible to come by or something. I live in Los Angeles, for frack's sake. What is my problem?)

Here's the point: Purl is great.

They have two little stores -- one yarn, one fabric -- a few doors apart from one another on Sullivan Street in Soho. Benefits of this include: if one store is packed with people (as the fabric store was when my brother and I went in), you can hop over to the other one with ease, and hop back once the pack has cleared.

This will be a tale of my hop over to the yarn store. The hop back to the fabric will come along in Part III. (And, funny enough, Hop Back to the Fabric is the name of the terrible hip-hop record I should've put out in 1987.)

Ok. So. You know who's rarely prepared? Dr. B. Not with all things, just with some. Packing for a trip? Always overpacked and super prepared. Leaving the house? Always so much stuff in my handbag that I'd surely win every prize on Let's Make a Deal if it were still on the air. Going to a yarn store? Rarely in possession of the pattern that would tell me what I'm doing at the yarn store anyway. I never really have any idea what to buy, how much to buy, or what the eff I'm doing.

This was no exception really. However, it helped that my fantastic brother was with me, and he is a man who needs ear coverage in the winter. This made it easy to focus on securing a yarn of his choosing to make the hat from that issue of Knitscene that forced its way into my home.

I didn't have the magazine/pattern with me, and the store didn't have it, but why let that stop me? I pointed my brother in a general direction, and he picked this super-soft yarn in the most beautiful colors (photo above).

Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was Lorna's Laces "watch-my-colors-pool-in-odd-blotches" yarn. But it really was one of the softest things I've ever felt, and the colors looked so good, we just went for it.

What's that you say? How did I figure out how much yarn to get without having the pattern? Who do I think I am, you ask? Well, more on that story another time. (It does not involve the internet or some secret mathematical skills. You'll see. I'll tell all in another post.)

A very important thing to say about Purl is this: the people who work there are honest and helpful. In a discussion about double-pointed needles (dpns), the woman who was helping me was very candid about her experience with the new Blue Sky ones in the fancy tin vs. the Latern Moon ebony ones. She said she preferred the latter for their speed, and she felt the Blue Sky ones were too expensive. (The website only shows the full set of fancy ones for $195 US. But I think if you buy them a la carte, they're $28 US.) Granted, the Lantern Moon ones were still pricey at $23 I think, but I really appreciated her candor.

Purl: You can't beat 'em for great yarn and great service.

Oh, here's the progress on the hat so far:


I don't mind the way the colors are pooling. I think it's good for this hat.

Still to go: seam up the back, crochet around it, and add the ties at the bottom.


As I've mentioned, blocking is not my strong suit. Desafortunadamente (my favorite word in Spanish), I think that's the next step in order to be able to sew up the back.

Wish me luck.

Part III will be all about the fabrics, baby.