Desert Thread, Moab, Utah - a yarn store review

Last week for the Spring Break holiday my family made the mammoth road trip to gorgeous Moab, Utah (19 hours each way!) Over the five years of living in Texas our driving distance has lengthed as we seek out more fantastic places to visit. While packing my current crochet projects and extra yarn I checked on Ravelry for a local yarn store. (I become extremely anxious about the thought of running out of yarn when on holiday. I know I'm not alone in feeling this way. I've written about it here How to locate a yarn store while away) I discovered Desert Thread had recently stashed yarn from customers (i.e. it's open), stocks brands that I liked and even had a Knit Night Wednesday 7-9pm. Result!

I managed three visits to Desert Thread while in Moab including the Knit Night. Yay! The owner Cathy and her sister Rosie are delightful, very knowledgeable and I could have talked to them all day about yarny goodness (if it wasn't for their other customers and my family waiting patiently to go hiking).

The store has been open ten years and is located in the center of town right opposite visitor information at 29 E. Center Street. I was made very welcome and Cathy told me that some Knit Night attendees are once a year regular returnees. I love to sit with others crafty folk, see what projects they are working on and have a bit of a chat. Yarn gatherings have the power to bring complete strangers together in a wonderful way.

 

Of course I had to buy local yarn because that's just what one does - support local producers and small businesses. And then I had to find the farm where the sheep who produced my yarn lived... But I'll write about that in next week's blog post. Sign up for my email (once a week reminder, no spam) if you'd like to see my sheep photos! I just love sheep, don't you?

 

If you're heading to Moab you must visit Desert Thread and please say hello to Cathy and Rosie for me. They have a website Desert Thread and Facebook page too. And I'd love to know if, like me, you seek out local yarn stores when on holiday.

A home for my woollen charity projects

I made a really exciting discovery this week. My fortnightly Yak and Yarn charity crochet group meeting was coming up. This always spurs me onwards to activity so that I can go to the meeting with something to contribute: a new pattern for us to try out, some completed products to donate... you get the idea.

 

Anyway, we have a sweet new member who is super keen and getting through my donated yarn stash at high speed. The softest acrylic is almost gone and there is just the itchy type left. I have an issue with working with it. I'm not quite sure how I become so sensitive to scratchy yarn but I do think that some of it is related to living in a warmer climate. When it's humid and you're feeling a little hot the fibers do chafe. I've gone soft since I moved to Texas. Another theory of mine is that I have been exposed to far too much gorgeously soft wool in the yarn store where I teach. Soft AND spoilt!

I do have some donated wool in my stash but the local charities we crochet for prefer items that are machine washable. My wool is hand wash only. But this week I found a charity, the Warm Hands Network, that actually prefers wool because it's warmer. The projects go mostly to Northern Canadian children. There is a Ravelry group too which of course I've joined. The garment I was talking about last week has been put to one side and I've started on a blanket of approximately 36" x 36" dimensions.

I do adore the bobble blanket that I made back here and I found this diagonal bobble striped blanket on Ravelry: The Blackberry Salad Striped Baby Blanket by the rather marvellous Tamara Kelly of the Moogly Blog. I'm guesstimating about having equal quantities of orange and brown colors. I should really just make the calculation and figure out how much I need but I'm missing a yarn label or two and I find it oddly entertaining examining the yarn as I go along wondering if I have sufficient. We all have our quirks! The bobble stitch pattern IS rather yarn hungry and when I look at the picture above it doesn't seem to add up. I may need to supplement to complete it but that's OK. And time is on my side because there are two main shipment dates and I can't possibly make the closest date Jan 30th.

I'd love to know if you know of another charity that accepts wool and/or if you have a charity project on the go... just comment below! Have a wonderful week y'all!

How to locate a yarn store while away

I get rather agitated when I'm packing to go on holiday. I panic about being separated from my stash and running out of yarn. It takes me several days to decide on what projects to take whereas the clothes are decided upon in a stress-free half an hour. Of course I am NOT going to run out of yarn. I don't sit around crocheting all day long on holiday. There are other holiday activities taking place. And I also assume I will crochet at ten times my normal rate which I don't. But just in case, it's good to be able to locate a nearby yarn store and it's also fascinating to have a little nosy around the different yarns that they sell. 
 

• Ravelry is my usual go to place to locate a yarn store. Once you've logged in, click on the "yarn" tab and on the left hand side half way down there is a search box entitled "local yarn shop directory". 
• Knit Map is a second searchable database for locating yarn stores worldwide which allows readers to rate, review and update yarn store information. 
• Find a yarn shop on the UK Hand Knitting Association website is another site for UK shops.

Marie Segares on her Underground Crafter blog has a great article on How to find great yarn stores on your next trip with lots more tips and two more sites to search for stores in the US: 

• Yarn places has yarn stores as well as yarn farms and yarn events.
• Yarn shop locator on the Daily Knitter website.

I managed to persuade my family to do a city tour of Norwich which included visits to two yarn stores Crafty Ewe, Norfolk Yarn AND the haberdashery department of the John Lewis store. Restocked!

Hope these resources are helpful if you are travelling this summer. Craft on everyone!

It's all about the blog

New to me: guest blogging

At the end of the year I wrote my first ever guest blog post. It was published on December 18th on the wonderful Kathryn Vercillo's Crochet Consupicence website. The article is entitled "The Back Story of my Growing Blog". Why don't you head on over to read it? If you don't already know Kathryn (pictured below) you should really get acquainted. She is a freelance writer, blogger and fellow crochet lover and I first came across her when I spotted her book "Crochet Saved My Life". In my mind, she is the leading authority on the health benefits of crochet and my holiday reading has been her latest Hook to Heal book which I've enjoyed immensely. What a treat! 

It took a long long time to write my guest article. I just wanted it to be perfect because I was so keen to impress Kathryn. I was also visualizing a huge number of people finding out about me for the first time via my guest piece and worried that perhaps they wouldn't like me. Anyway, I mentioned my block to a professional writer friend and he advised me to just write the guest post as though it was for my own blog Crafty Escapism and his advice worked! The words started to flow again. Phew!

I've just finished my second guest post for a brand new crochet magazine being set up by a good friend and talented hooky lady Catherine and I'm repeating to myself "it's going on MY blog, it's going on MY blog..." to prevent any further blockages. It's a big topic - the health benefits of crochet - so keeping to the word limit is the challenging element this time. Of course I'll let you know where it is, when it's live.

All my blogs in one place with Bloglovin'

I've just discovered Bloglovin. I am now keeping all my favorite blogs in one place - genius! I do enjoy reading other people's blogs. I guess that's one of the reasons I'm blogging too, having been inspired by others. In Bloglovin you can search for any blog by name, click on the follow button and new posts will appear in your feed. I've installed the app on my phone and I am loving it.

In the past I've been a little haphazard in the reading of my favorite blogs. For some, I receive emails but they tend to get overlooked in the email deluge; others appear occasionally in my Facebook newsfeed but Facebook decides on what I see based on a complex algorithm so I suspect I miss a lot. I have saved some as icons on my iPad screen but I have icon overwhelm so these get missed. Bloglovin keeps them all together. The design is cute and clean and I'm a sucker for a user friendly interface.

Finding other yarn-related blogs

Bloglovin are also suggesting blogs that I may like based on my existing blog choices. I can enter a search term and search by category. It's all very helpful. Another place I go to find fellow craft bloggers is my favorite go-to-craft community Ravelry. There is a Ravelry group Blogging: a place for and about blogs with over 2,300 members. Not all of these members are bloggers! The group is for crafters who blog, read blogs or want to start a blog. I'm excited about adding new members to my new easy-to-access blog feed. Members of the Blogging group are invited to post their blog articles each month so it's really easy to see to find recent posts in a single thread.
 

 

 

Crafty folk popping up on Periscope

I've just started watching crafty folk on Periscope, Twitter's live video streaming app. It’s a mobile app which you can use to record and broadcast live to a global audience. And in less than five months since it's launch in March this year Periscope had more than 10 million accounts. That's a pretty impressive statistic.

I downloaded the app on a whim a while ago and then forgot about it. Then two weeks ago while I was at my desk, my phone gave a cute little whistle and I started watching Sara Duggan virtual pa from Five In Sac with her magical productivity tip of the day. Sara is a Twitter friend since in a former life she was the super crochet designer momwithahook! I loved seeing her in person and sensing the warmth of her personality in the live broadcast. I found that I could interact too with comments and tap the screen to form little love hearts when I liked something. What an adorable user interface!

Then I discovered that Ravelry has a Periscope group Crafty Periscopers and of course I joined. I went though the thread "periscope usernames - introduce yourself", followed all that I could find and ever since then my phone has been whistling away alerting me to crafty folk's scopes. It's a fantastic distraction. I have discovered a new way to weave in my ends, seen yarn being dyed, learnt about new KALs, seen beautiful project bags, a review of sock knitting pattern books.... etc etc.

The people I'm following can also invite me to live scopes that they are watching so in a snowball fashion I am getting alerts for these too. When will all this fun end? Replays are only available for 24 hours and I'd love to go back and watch some of the more memorable scopes but it's a "live in the moment" kind of app which is no bad thing.

I must admit to having not plucked up the courage to scope myself yet and so my profile page only displays a number 1 by my love heart. (Periscope measures your viewers' hearts and then ranks you.) But I am feeling encouraged by the topic suggestions on the Ravelry group "Weekly prompts". This week's is "how to get out of a creative rut". I certainly feel like this is something I could chatter on about to an audience!

Back on track with Christmas gift making

I am back on track with the Christmas gifts, customizing reusable canvas tote bags with the cutest crochet creations I can find. I am rather pleased with this sunflower for my son's teacher. My flower is adapted from a Quarter Sunflower Square by Suvi on Ravelry which was itself adapted from another pattern The Crocodile Flower by Joyce Lewis.....

Last month I followed Vicky Howell's advice to "think small, go big" hooking up a flurry of scarfs and cowls in chunky yarn from my stash for family and friends in the UK. Then I got a little off task with other crochet projects and life in general. Getting side-tracked is inevitable so that's why it's best to start your Christmas crafting very early.

Since I cannot resist a challenge I HAD to crochet a cardigan for National Crochet Cardigan Month responding to a call from a new Ravelry group I've joined Crochet on Ravelry which has almost 27,000 members. Wow! I'm not sure why I hadn't noticed the group before. ON a sidenote, I wonder how many fellow yarn lovers have found themselves sucked down the rabbit hole of pleasant Ravelry diversions?

Of course, given my penchant for granny squares, my cardigan choice was the Granny shrug by Kirsty of KooToYoo cleverly constructed from two granny hexagons. Easy, quick and size as you go - my kind of pattern! I didn't even have time to block it before it's first outing. Anyway, time to go. My poinsettia petals are calling me...

Another Lucy Ravenscar creation

My daughter is going to a sleepover this weekend. This is all the rage for 10 and 11 year old girls for their birthdays. I am not a massive fan because "sleepover" is a poor description of what actually occurs and I don't really want to deal with a grumpy child all weekend but it's the school holidays and I find it very hard to say no when it's one of her best buddies. 

She tells my her friend loves elephants.  A quick search on Ravelry brought up ANOTHER Lucy Ravenscar pattern. This is my third free pattern (#1 witch's cat, #2 little lucky pig). I think it's high time I actually purchased something from her. It's going to have to be her Star Wars Crochet Kit which is available on Amazon.

One of my workshop students has bought the kit, on my recommendation already, and is making a baby mobile with each character for her latest grandson. But I know these are going to be BIG with the new Star Wars movie coming out later this year and I need to get a head start.

I really really like Lucy's patterns so much: the way she uses bobbles for feet and how her patterns are in one piece with no seaming and sewing on of fiddly individual little parts. I am bad at putting my projects on Ravelry but I will get around to it because I want to let Lucy know how much I love them. Here is the elephant link on Ravelry. I feel that my elephant will be the first of a herd.