I came, I saw, I shopped

This blog is coming to you from not so beautiful Sugarland, Texas. Lots of strip malls, but who wants to see Texans strip? This is definitely not where I'll be staying when I come back in 2 weeks. The acoustics are perfect--for hearing the people in the room above me staggering around all night long. The fire department shut off the water this morning. I'm sure there's more I'll hate, but I've only been here 8 hours.


First, of course, was New York. Snowy New York (eat your heart out, kids-o-mine...)




Despite the lure of the snow I got to do a little shopping:


Some Trekking from Downtown Yarns and from Seaport Yarn. Roving from Downtown Yarns. Clover notions from Knit NY, Purl Soho, and Gotta Knit!.

I also got some 100% merino at School Products for my Clapotis:




It may just have been yarn crawl burnout (5 in one day, one the next), but I wasn;t terribly impressed with most of the stores. Way too much fun fur (what's so fun about it?), too many "we're so trendy it hurts" vibes. Hardly any yarns you'd actually want to knit a whole sweater with, and what there was was so expensive you couldn't afford to. I'm spoiled by online shopping: if I can get a Clover Ka-ching counter for $5 on line, why on earth would I want to pay $9 plus tax at Knit NY? Just because it's a happening knit cafe? No, thanks. I'll take my knitting here, and my coffee to go.

School Products remains the best value, though for once they didn't seem to have many back issues of magazines. Disappointing, because I didn't buy in Jerusalem--why pay twice the price if I can pick them up in NY? Best laid plans... Lots of coned yarns, as usual, and more "hot" name brands than I used to see.

The next best was Seaport Yarns. Very helpful staff, loads of books and magazines (again, not all that many back issues), room upon room of yarn (name brands). The prices were good, but they don't take credit cards--cash or check only.

After that was Downtown Yarsn. A little funky, not as helpful. Had some roving, shelves jam packed with yarn (to the extent of being difficult to remove sometimes). Prices weren't marked on all yarns.

Gotta Knit! was a very standard, upper-middle-class knitter with experience type of store with prices to match.

Purl Soho had that "hip to knit" vibe and n=lots of designer yarns, but the staff was friendly and helpful.

Knit NY was so hip it hurt my teeth. Very little help from the staff, nothing I'd want to knit more than a scarf in. Funky designer yarns (read: yarns I could spin myself at half the price).

In the end I was glad I did the crawl: I'd never been to Seaport before and will now add it to my "NYC must visit" list. I'll probably look at Downtown again, too. But as for the others--feh.

Sometime this week: Houston yarn stores and all Clapotis, all the time, baby!