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Chicago Blue Line Yarn Crawl

I took a little road trip with some fiber friends in January. I wanted to visit some yarn shops while I was there to show off some of my crochet designs in hopes they might make samples for their shops.

We designed our personal yarn hop shopping experience, called the Blue-Line Yarn Crawl! Most shops were a short walk from the Blue-Line, so there was no need to hop on a bus.

Brrr!

If you decide to take this trip in January, as I did. I recommend being prepared for the cold! It was doable. I regret not bringing long underwear! I did bring a warm shawl; fingerless mitts were fine, so I could more easily use my phone and a warm hat.

We started our journey by hopping on the blue line stop close to our stay. You can get a $5 paper ticket that is good for 24 hours, and you can use it on all the subway trains and busses. We headed to the farthest yarn shop, Yarnify. I visited this shop in 2019 while on vacation at a different location. I love the new space. It feels more open.

I picked up some cute Clover brand sheep-shaped stitch markers that have been on my to-buy list, as well as a skein of Sweet Georgia Tough Love to finish my The Most Picot using two colors. I was inspired by one of my testers, who made her shawl in three colors.

Here’s the beginning of the scarf before finishing it with the Tough Love.

I used La Bien Amee Cashmerino, purchased at Unwind in Lee Summit, Mo, for the first part of the body and finished the scarf with the Tough Love.

My tester's shawl used three colors of hand-dyed yarn from Fibras Urbanas an Argentinian dyer. Darker pink for the main part of the body, speckled yarn to complete the body, then finished with a lighter pick for the edging.

Next up was Nina Chicago. Right outside, this shop is the cutest yarn-bombed bike. I didn’t get images of the shop there, but you can see them on their website. There is so much natural light! They carry yarn, fabric, and so much more! They had so many beautiful accessories for yanies and sewists. I got a cute cat gauge ruler from Katrinkles, which does now hangs on my loom to measure picks per inch. As well as the yarn pictured below.

I can rarely pass up hand-dyed purple ( Dragonfly colorway)  by Kraeo Fuzz Family Yarn in Chicago

I was also drawn to a bright green yarn with speckles by Herd of Cats  (Fernwood colorway.) Which is a part of the Road Trip colors she made for Nina’s last year.

We were getting a wee bit hungry on our way to Firefly Fiber Arts Studio. So we stopped at Chiyachai in Logan Square to get a I got a delicious Chai, and we shared these tasty Momo Dumplings.

I spied a gorgeous woven scarf worn by a customer. I regret not getting a photo. I want to do something very similar someday. The ground cloth was natural off-white with medium dark blue pattern yarn. It was wide, 15 inches or so.

Then, we headed to Firefly Fiber Arts Studio. It’s a small yarn shop with a well-currated selection of yarns focusing on sustainability. I picked up five colors of Knitting for Olive from Denmark. It’s a light-fingering yarn. I’m excited to see how this works out for a new design I hope to publish this year. See the swatch of the future design below.

I plan to make each wedge wider than the sample above and use one color per wedge.

We didn’t make it to the Blooming Spindle until the next day. You can get to this shop from the blue-0line and transfer to a bus. It’s a bit of a distance to walk from the blue-line stop.

I picked up some sock yarn because I always have some socks on my needles.

We also visited Cog Cycles & Yarn because our friend, Liz Bonny from Harvestry by Hand, taught classes there that weekend. It’s a unique shop that sells yarn and bikes. They focus on yarn during the colder months and bikes during the warmer months, but always both! This shop is not accessible directly off the blue-line. Worth a visit for their locally hand-dyed yarns.

They have a lovely curated selection of locally dyed yarns inspired by the shop dog Tater dyed by Gnome Depot Fiber. I had a hard time deciding what I wanted. I picked up this lovely local hand-dyed yarn by Gnome Depot in the ’86 Remix colorway.

Some shops I wish I could have fit in but couldn’t this trip: Miss Purl Chicago and Knit1. I hope to make it to them thenext time I visit chicago!