Fell Down in Dallas

Depending upon which blogs you read, vacation yarn and sock yarn "don't count as stash." Somehow I doubt that the yarn I brought home from conference doubly doesn't count as stash--unless that would somehow mean I got to count one fewer skeins of yarn?  Does that work? I didn't think so.

After getting through a swath of meetings at the conference I attended, a friend and I headed off towards the one wool shop that was within walking distance of our hotel. It was only about a 15 minute walk, but Dallas is not particularly walking friendly. Everywhere we went there were ripped up sidewalks and walking under highway overpasses, even during the day, when you just don't see other people about is rather creepy.  Still, we turned into what is probably a very nice neighborhood and located the little house that hosts The Shabby Sheep.

The store comprises the first floor of the house. I couldn't find any particularly sorting method--mostly by weight, but not entirely. Their primary company is Cascade, though I don't recall seeing a wall of 220 like I'm used to--that could be because we were in Texas.  There were many local knitters there, needing help, looking for needles, etc and it was a number of minutes before anyone said anything to my friend and I in way of greeting. We seemed to have just slipped in under the radar, when we were acknowledged they were very friendly.

When shopping out of my local area, I like to find indie dyers or smaller companies that I can't find regularly at Loopy or The Loopy Ewe. And in that I was disappointed.  I could only find one dyer that I didn't immediately recognize as a pretty large/familiar brand.  I went through the five or six skeins of said dyer and picked out the one that didn't look like everything already in my stash.

Sibling the Elder should be pleased: it's Red

It's Pagewood Farm Yukon in "Really Red"  It's a muted/faded red, a little closer to brick than fire engine.  It's a hefty skein, 450 yards, and 70% merino, 20% Bamboo, 10% nylon.  It's got a nice hand on it.  It will probably be socks, though perhaps I'll pair it with something or use it as trim. It looks like it'd make nice sweater trip. That, of course assuming I ever get back to my sweater knitting.

And yes, I did take points off my ChoreWars for it and I had plenty for it.