Day Two of the trip back east.. Mega Day & Mega Post

First please forgive the length of the post and the amount of pics but it was quite a day.

Day two turned out to be a huge day in the yarn buying record books for us. For those of you who follow our blog we tend to go off and spend a little once in a while and sometimes we really come home with a haul. Today was the all time most we have ever spent on yarn and yarn related goodies in one day. We had planned on visiting a store called Halcyon in Bath Maine http://www.halcyonyarn.com/ about 90 minutes north of where we stayed the night before in Northern Mass. What a place, this was the single best shop we have seen in our yarn shop expeditions. Spinning, weaving, knitting and all of the fiber arts were supported to a level we have never seen before. Walls of books for each subject and specialty products.

Forgive the fuzzy acrylic photo. Must have been the acrylic fiber twitch taking over.

Noro yarns in hanks and balls

silks and silk blends

Roving

Bulk fiber for machine and hand knitting

Weaving

Weaving books

More knitting books than we have ever seen in one place




We found out that if you bought 5 books we would receive 25% off. Need I say more than we got the discount. Halcyon has 2 catalogs, one for equipment and one for yarn. those are pictured on the top of the image. I also picked up a DVD to learn the continental style of knitting to try and increase my knitting speed. I think spending more time knitting would help too.

Three sock books, one book on drop spindle spinning and the Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbra Walker. We bought the first one last month in Solvang.

Ok here is the yarn that had to come home with us. We planned on buying some yarn to fill in the places in our luggage that had Christmas gifts previously or at least that's what we told ourselves when we packed before we left. Boy were we wrong.

Two hanks of Malabrigo Hollyhock, 5 hanks of thick and thin Malabrigo aquarella in the Solis colorway

The Malibrigo came with a free scarf pattern too

Standing at the checkout I saw these beautiful hand made stitch makers so they came home too. I'm such an impulse buyer I guess.

For Christmas Mrs Twisted bought me the the Ashford drop spindle to hold me over until I buy the Majacraft Rose I have my eye on. To go with the drop spindle I bought some roving to play with, Plain and dyed.

The last Item from Halcyon was some special self branded local yarn made just for them. !00% pure silk in sport weight at 260 yards per hank. They call it Gemstone Silk in a beautiful ruby color. 5 @260 yards for 1300 yards.

This is the whole lot in one pic. One great day but what we didn't know was that there was one more stop.

Always room for some cheesy fun, here is the restaurant across from the yarn store. Yum Mee Chinese food

Next door to that was the surprise of a lifetime for you Chocoholics. Imagine if you will a chocolate church.

After the Chocolate Church we hit 95 south to head to our next stop. One of Mrs. Twisted long time friends when I saw a really neat building off the interstate. It looked like a lighthouse sort of all lit up and as we drove past it Mrs. Twisted saw the yarn sign and that's all it took to get off at the next off ramp and head back. Our credit card was still warm from the last shop less than an hour behind us.

Fine Yarns and Needlework Grace Robinson and Company. What a wonderful shop, the owner was so gracious and friendly. http://www.yarnandneedlepoint.com/ The selection was different and without much competitive overlap of brands to Halcyon

The haul for this shop was enough Plymouth Royal Bamboo to make a shawl and some other colors for scaves and such. If you havent felt the Plymoth royal Bamboo, it feels like silk and has the sheen of silk blends.

2 balls of silver bamboo, 2 balls of deep blue bamboo, 2 balls of variegated blue bamboo and 11 balls of a deep ruby color that looks sort of washed out here. I also found a set of bamboo cable holders.

In volume it was 29 balls/ hanks plus roving and books for the day. But it gets worse the next day...... If we only knew.