Jess, owner of one of my favourite local yarn stores, first let me into the secret of the Indie Burgh Yarn Crawl last year. She had the vision but not a name. Lots of words but nothing that pulled together so she asked for some suggestions. I can’t believe my title was chosen.
Of course I joined in the fun of IBYC 2014 with a few of my knitty friends. We had a great time and I wondered if the event might run again. I am pleased to say that the event was confirmed and expanded upon. IBYC 2015 spanned the whole weekend with yarn shops Ginger Twist, Be Inspired and Kathy’s Knits all participating again along with some workshops and a grand finale gathering at Safari Lounge.
Unfortunately I was working on the Saturday, but I had enough time to run up to GTS shortly after 11am. I couldn’t believe that there was already a queue of people outside waiting their turn very patiently to enter Jess’s little shop. GTS really is a little shop, but it is packed full of wonderful goodies to delight any knitter, especially her hand dyed yarn. Us knitters can be quite an orderly bunch when required. Every time one person squeezed out of the shop another squeezed in. I already had an idea about what I was after in GTS. Either her special dye lot for IBYC 2015 or another of her hand dyes. As I got to the front of the queue to enter the shop I spied the one-off colour, a lovely shade of purple. Decision made and as I entered the shop I picked up a skein, paid and had a brief chat with Jess and the wonderfully talented Claire Devine. I made my way out the shop and headed off to work for the day.
Sunday morning Rod had to finish off from yesterday’s work so I grabbed a lift from him up to Kathy’s Knits. I was rather surprised to see so few people in, but perhaps most people ran around yesterday or perhaps people were enjoying a bit of a lie in and would descend upon the shop a little later on. Kathy’s shop is quite local to me but must admit I’ve only been in a handful of times. Isn’t that terrible of me 😕 Kathy sells some really wonderful yarns, focusing primarily on British yarn. Her shop is full of temptation and I had no idea what would catch my eye. Temptation didn’t take too long to take hold. I thought Titus could be a contender, but then I spotted that Kathy had some Easy Knits in. Oh how I love the colours that Easy Knits produces. Right at the top of the pile were two skeins of a lovely denim blue. I picked them up, I squished them, Kathy told me they were new out. I just had to have them.
I walked up to Frederick Street to catch the bus up to Mei’s. I had just missed the bus and had half an hour to kill so stopped in to Hotel Chocolat to buy a hot chocolate. Maybe just missing that bus wasn’t so bad after all.
Mei’s shop, Be Inspired Fibres was my final stop, the least local of my local yarn stores. Mei specialises in more luxurious yarns. I always struggle to make a choice in Be Inspired as it’s all so enticing and my budget doesn’t allow me to buy everything. I entered the shop to find it also wasn’t crazy busy. Sunday was clearly the best day to yarn crawl. I was able to wander around the shop at leisure. I jumped from yarn to yarn, overwhelmed by the choice. I finally settled on a skein of Fyberspates, a small ball of Ito Gima and a Madelinetosh Unicorn Tail.
Working yesterday, I didn’t get much chance to be outside so I enjoyed a walk back down the road (including a side visit to the museum).
Although I’d already covered GTS on the crawl I stopped back in there. Business was steady but the place wasn’t packed so I was able to spend some time in the shop and chat.
Another successful Indie Burgh Yarn Crawl is over. I think it’s safe to say that this event is now firmly established in the knitting calendar. Gosh, we knitters are rather spoilt in Edinburgh.
Little Lolly Travels 