The Pacific Northwest puts together a yarn crawl annually (this year's I believe is its fifth). For those of you wondering what might be included in a yarn crawl, it is a number of local yarn shops that band together for advertising purposes, offer free patterns, and discount yarn for a set number of days. This means the yarn fanatic can make a tour of different shops. Or in short, it's like a pub crawl only with yarn replacing the alcohol. Here's the post where I wrote about the event last year.
This year I decided it would be better for both of us if I took another yarn fancier with me rather than having Paul sit in the car to wait for me. I too would feel more at ease taking as much time as I like in each shop. So my knit buddy, Tena and I have been planning to attend this event for sometime. But we knew we had to be strategic about the adventure.
First it was deciding which of the four days (May 16-19) would be the best to take this trip. Since this is the long Victoria Day weekend in Canada, we knew we wanted to avoid border lineups. So we decided to go on Thursday, May 16 the first day of the crawl. And we knew we'd have time to visit just a few of the many shops on the tour before we'd have to head home. So we focused on the North Puget Sound area, Blaine, Lynden and Bellingham all in Washington. This is how the area is described in the LYS Tour brochure: "This leg of the LYS Tour bring you into the bustling city of Bellingham and out around the wide-open country roads where you can get glimpses of Canada." Here's a link to the tour map; we were planning to do the five most northern shops.
The day started at 8:30 am when I picked Tena up. By 9:30 we were in lovely Lynden, Washington. I've driven through the Lynden area many times as we use it to get to a smaller border crossing closer to our home than the major Peace Arch crossing. Lynden, with an approximate population of 11,000, has a distinct Dutch/European look. Here's a photo taken right downtown.
This windmill (which is actually an inn) along with the perfectly manicured lawns and very clean streets reminds me of home. I went to high school is a city of about the same size with the same Dutch/European cultural mix.
Here we stopped/shopped (perhaps I should say I shopped, Tena was very restrained, all day long [I say with envy]) at Wear on Earth. This shop has an interesting business model; the front of the store is a thrift store and in the back, a yarn shop.
The yarn shop was very nice and I especially liked their buttons. (BTW buttons are an under discussed knitting item. The perfect buttons are generally either hard to find when you want them, or very expensive, so I stock up when I find them at a good price) We browsed from about 10-11 am. I purchased some of their lovely buttons and a hank of hemp yarn that will become a market bag, I think. Here's Tena doing what we both did for most of the day, looking, touching and letting our creative juices flow.
After a quick coffee/tea we took a country road (thanks to my trusty GPS) to Beach Basket Yarns in Birch Bay. Click on the link to see we literally traveled to the Pacific Ocean.
Birch Bay is located approximately 100 miles north of Seattle and 35 miles south of Vancouver. It is a village of about 8,000 linked to Blaine, Washington. An interesting factoid about Birch Bay is it receives 25% less rain than Bellingham, a city just 20 miles south of it because Birch Bay is protected by the water surrounding it.
I was amazed that a yarn shop could afford renting property so close to the beach so I asked the owner and found she has a very good rent rate. She commented this allows her to stay open even during the winter months when the vacation traffic leaves. As for the yarn, we again spent about an hour thinking about what could be made with certain yarns, picking up new ideas and I did buy a lovely peach coloured yarn that was on sale. (It is very hard to locate a yarn colour that actually looks like a peach so when I found this one I had to have it.)
We'll stop here and continue tomorrow with Part II which will include an interesting Bellingham restaurant where we had lunch. That's my attempt at a cliff hanger, BTW, so stay tuned.
This year I decided it would be better for both of us if I took another yarn fancier with me rather than having Paul sit in the car to wait for me. I too would feel more at ease taking as much time as I like in each shop. So my knit buddy, Tena and I have been planning to attend this event for sometime. But we knew we had to be strategic about the adventure.
First it was deciding which of the four days (May 16-19) would be the best to take this trip. Since this is the long Victoria Day weekend in Canada, we knew we wanted to avoid border lineups. So we decided to go on Thursday, May 16 the first day of the crawl. And we knew we'd have time to visit just a few of the many shops on the tour before we'd have to head home. So we focused on the North Puget Sound area, Blaine, Lynden and Bellingham all in Washington. This is how the area is described in the LYS Tour brochure: "This leg of the LYS Tour bring you into the bustling city of Bellingham and out around the wide-open country roads where you can get glimpses of Canada." Here's a link to the tour map; we were planning to do the five most northern shops.
The day started at 8:30 am when I picked Tena up. By 9:30 we were in lovely Lynden, Washington. I've driven through the Lynden area many times as we use it to get to a smaller border crossing closer to our home than the major Peace Arch crossing. Lynden, with an approximate population of 11,000, has a distinct Dutch/European look. Here's a photo taken right downtown.
This windmill (which is actually an inn) along with the perfectly manicured lawns and very clean streets reminds me of home. I went to high school is a city of about the same size with the same Dutch/European cultural mix.
Here we stopped/shopped (perhaps I should say I shopped, Tena was very restrained, all day long [I say with envy]) at Wear on Earth. This shop has an interesting business model; the front of the store is a thrift store and in the back, a yarn shop.
 |
| See her hand is in motion about to touch |
After a quick coffee/tea we took a country road (thanks to my trusty GPS) to Beach Basket Yarns in Birch Bay. Click on the link to see we literally traveled to the Pacific Ocean.
 |
| Beach Basket Yarns, Birch Bay, Washington |
Birch Bay is located approximately 100 miles north of Seattle and 35 miles south of Vancouver. It is a village of about 8,000 linked to Blaine, Washington. An interesting factoid about Birch Bay is it receives 25% less rain than Bellingham, a city just 20 miles south of it because Birch Bay is protected by the water surrounding it.
I was amazed that a yarn shop could afford renting property so close to the beach so I asked the owner and found she has a very good rent rate. She commented this allows her to stay open even during the winter months when the vacation traffic leaves. As for the yarn, we again spent about an hour thinking about what could be made with certain yarns, picking up new ideas and I did buy a lovely peach coloured yarn that was on sale. (It is very hard to locate a yarn colour that actually looks like a peach so when I found this one I had to have it.)
We'll stop here and continue tomorrow with Part II which will include an interesting Bellingham restaurant where we had lunch. That's my attempt at a cliff hanger, BTW, so stay tuned.
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