After Susan arrived on Thursday, she did some “stash diving” at Surly’s and found a number of treasures before we even embarked on our quest! We left for NYC bright and early on Friday, hoping to get a couple of yarn store visits under our belts before the “theatah.”
Friday
Based upon the recommendations of our readers, our first stop on Friday was School Products — a counterintuitive name for a yarn store, but hey. It was full of various treasures, especially some nice cashmere. Even so, Sally was drawn to the wall of Koigu like a moth to a flame, though she already has a wall of Koigu of her own. Seventeen skeins (which was every skein they had) of a rich eggplant “solid” somehow found its way into her knitting bag. Hmmmmm…how did that happen?
School Products is owned by Bertra Karapetyan — author of Runway Knits and the force behind Karabella Yarns.
Next up: Habu Textiles.
Habu Textiles is not really a yarn shop, but does specialize in very exotic fibers: steel yarn (thread, actually) and an array of other fun things like silks and bamboo. It’s a fun place to browse and touch, but we didn’t buy anything. (Sally already has six or seven cones of exotics from Habu that she bought several years ago.)
Friday Night
Friday night marked Clay Aiken’s Broadway debut in Spamalot. Who could miss that? It was a crazy, irreverent, bawdy, funny show. Clay was wonderful in his multiple roles: Sir Robin, monk, idiot guard. We loved Tom Deckman, who played “Herbert,” as well and enjoyed the play immensely. There was a huge crush of fans at the Stage Door waiting to get Clay’s autograph, which we were unable to do — too far back. But we left feeling like the evening was a raging success.
Saturday
First Stop: Purl Soho, which has more beautiful yarn per square inch than almost any other store we’ve been to. The shop is small, but it is more than worth a trip (or two). We could have spent a fortune here, but we tried to restrain ourselves. We bought some silk and mohair blends and some Blue Skye Alpaca and Silk for experimenting. Oh! And some sock yarn.
Soho itself is a fun area to wander around in. We wished we hadn’t eaten a late breakfast because right by Purl is a restaurant called Once Upon a Tart that looked intriguing if you know what we mean and we think that you do.
Next stop: Knit New York — a wonderful knitting shop with great coffee and even nicer people:
They encourage knitters to just hang out and knit, which was fine with us! This place was our favorite.
Here’s Nina, whom we met at Knit New York:
Nina blew us away! She is an extremely accomplished knitter at the very tender age of seventeen. She made her hat (Interweave Knits) and knew so much about all kinds of knitting. She has made two Rogue Hoodies (one sans hood for Mom), and just seemed so ahead of the game with her knitting. We would love to see where she is in twenty years! What a sweetie!
Here Sally is enjoying the ambience of the shop: it was great to sip coffee, knit and hang out in the warm and welcoming atmosphere — note wall o’yarn!! (Doesn’t she look tired? We were up way too late Friday night, especially Sally.) We relieved them of a lot of their yarn burden 😉 — it was the least we could do. We bought some lovely 5-ply cashmere from Artful Yarns (for fingerless gloves or mitts) and lots and lots of Sirino, a silk and merino blend from the Great Adirondack Yarn Company.
The fantastic staff agreed to pose for us, Chorus Line style!
From Left to Right: Anneli, Miriam (shop owner), Carlee, Brooke, and Meghan
We rushed back to the hotel so we could get dinner before going to Wicked, but got waylaid by the opportunity to have Clay sign our programs after the matinee — and he did!
Saturday night we dined atop our hotel in the revolving restaurant with a view of the city and then on to the play: Wicked was fantastic, as everyone knows. The production was amazing — we left there feeling like we had experienced a real Broadway show. Sally especially loved it, as she hadn’t seen it before. Then back to reality! We took the train back to DC early Sunday morning.
Here we attempt to capture the beautiousness of our acquired yarns:
The silks, the alpacas, the cashmeres… ::sigh:: Just packing the yarn was a treat because of the softness.
We had a totally wonderful time — made even better by meeting up with old and new friends. We say farewell to Times Square (view from our room):
View from Times Square!!
It was really cold there….Hey Cowboy, you seem to have forgotten your pants 🙂
That was a fun read! Almost like being there. Thanks for sharing your trip (and purchases!) I wanna be your sister too! 😀
Comment by Susan — January 22, 2008 @ 10:06 am
Guys- I was almost (almost) distracted by the cowboy (only in New York), but I couldn’t
take my eyes off the wall of yarn and the haul on the bed.
I know great yarn porn when I see it.
Comment by Lorraine — January 22, 2008 @ 10:09 am
Not even the buff cowboy could tear my eyes (for long) off the gorgeous yarn with the peacock labels on the bed. What *is* that stuff???
Comment by Susan — January 22, 2008 @ 10:31 am
Wow! All that time with sisters and great yarn. It doesn’t get any better than that! I’m curious to see what you’re going to do with Sireno. I’ve made one shawl out of it, but I have more.
Comment by Maria — January 22, 2008 @ 10:50 am
Sounds like an amazing amazing trip!! Broadway and knitting. Heaven!
Comment by Soo — January 22, 2008 @ 11:22 am
That was fun to go along with you via your blog. Thanks!
Comment by Kay — January 22, 2008 @ 11:25 am
Is that Alchemy Haiku I spy in your stash? One of my favourites. There’s drool on my chin.
Comment by Gale — January 22, 2008 @ 12:23 pm
Hey! You caught the Naked Cowboy! Wasn’t it like below zero while you were there? Sheesh, that guy is crazy! What a fun trip!
Comment by Ann — January 22, 2008 @ 12:32 pm
Fabulous! I feel like I was there! Looks like you had a lot of fun. Loved the picture of Clay, and loved, loved the cowboy!!!
Comment by kellistarr — January 22, 2008 @ 1:17 pm
So glad you had fun in our wonderful city!! You definitely hit a lot of the LYS highlights. Glad you had fun!
Comment by Julie — January 22, 2008 @ 5:24 pm
Thanks for sharing the fun! The man & I may be going next month so my research for yarn shops is greatly enhanced just from your experience.
So — yarn on the bed —
bottom left, mustard skein and reddish/yellowish skein, light halo, same maker, what is it? Please please please tell me it doesn’t have mohair! It’s so yummy maybe I could endure an allergic reaction.
Looks like you had a great time!
Comment by Denise~ — January 22, 2008 @ 8:10 pm
sigh! what a fan-ta-bu-lous weekend!! You ladies are soooo lucky that you both share the same love. I just can’t wait to see what you do with that awesome eggplant koigu!
Comment by Michelle — January 22, 2008 @ 8:26 pm
I am so jealous. Real yarn in a real store. Even a coffee shop, that would be my dream. Here in my neck of the woods? It’s Walmart, Baby. (Or mailorder)
Comment by Angelika — January 22, 2008 @ 10:18 pm
Wow. It looks like such a wonderful time! It is all to drool over. :happysigh:
Comment by Romi — January 22, 2008 @ 11:39 pm
Thank you for sharing your trip to NYC. It all sounds so wonderful.
Comment by Michele with one "L" — January 23, 2008 @ 9:24 am
Oh my gosh! You got a picture of the naked cowboy. I use to live in NYC…he has been there forever! AND when it is cold out too.
Love the addition to your stashes!
Comment by Mary — January 23, 2008 @ 3:56 pm
Really enjoyed travelling with you. Next time I’m there I’ll have to ditch the family and make it to those great shops. Thanks for the trip and great pix. And, of course, the show reviews.
Comment by Joan in WA — January 23, 2008 @ 8:23 pm
How lovely to see Surly/Sally sitting in a yarn shop and knitting with a wall of yarn behind her! I haven’t seen that since Yarns International closed their doors. I miss seeing Sally there and talking about her latest project.
Comment by Sue T. — January 24, 2008 @ 8:18 pm
Sounds like you had a wonderful time! Thanks for sharing your trip with your blog friends. Its nice to know I’m not the only one who seeks out yarn stores when traveling – nice that my husband and four sons are patient with this (not very!)!
Comment by Nancy — January 26, 2008 @ 10:15 am
I read that Clay did a short stint in the Spamalot ticket booth. Think he’d trade places with the cowboy for a bit?
I’m trying to figure out a way to get to NYC for Spamalot AND a yarn crawl. I think all the “cheap” hotel rooms in Times Sqaure are already gone, though. I’d love to sit in a NYC yarn shop, knit, drink coffee or hot cocoa and people watch!
Comment by Nancy — January 26, 2008 @ 2:49 pm
WOW! Hubby and I were there earlier this month – looks like you were staying at the Renaissance – way up HIGH! It was all I could do to get to School Products – Purl was out of my reach -remember the trip was with Hubby! So happy for your yarn haul!
congrats!
Joan
Comment by Joan — January 27, 2008 @ 1:00 am
Great post! I work right by where the Naked Cowboy hangs out and does his naked cowboy thing – it’s amazing, he’s out there in his undies in the coldest of cold weather.
Comment by Marti — January 28, 2008 @ 9:31 am
Oh my goodness! I spent a chunk of my travel bucks this year on MacWorld on the oppositee coast. What I would give to have shared in your NYC experience!
Meanwhile, I have tagged you two for a meme on my blog. I just love your site and the photos you share. Thanks for the virtual trip to the Big Apple!
Comment by Katie — January 28, 2008 @ 3:16 pm