the search for yarn

There is so much to write!

Last week I was in Denmark with my friend and her husband and children. There wasn't much of a plan while we were there except to relax and take walks on the (very windy) beach. I had told them before I came that I wanted to visit a yarn store or two, and through the marvelous wonders of the internet I'd received recommendations to stores in northern Germany and western Denmark.

Our first try was a failure. We drove north last Saturday and hoped to stop in a town near the Danish border called Flensburg. I had heard great things about a yarn store there, and some of the folks from Ravelry had actually wanted to meet me there. Unfortunately, we arrived right after it closed at 1pm. It was very sad. On Tuesday we decided to try a store in a town close to our rented house in Denmark. This store, though open, was pretty much a disappointment: mostly acrylics and very scratchy plain old yarn mixed in with nicknacks and children's toys. We thought we'd head down to a town called Ho the next day, but after checking the store's site we learned that it was closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays. And so on Wednesday afternoon I drove with my friend to a town called Tarm.

When we neared the outskirts of the town, we saw a sign with the yarn store's name and an arrow. We turned onto a very narrow rural road and drove a little ways, past farms and cows. It turned out that the store was in one of these farms.The store was in the farm up there.

Next to the parking area was a pasture of cows, which we later heard were a breed from Scotland. When we went to get a closer look at them, they all ran over to the fence. Apparently they thought we were going to feed them. The woman who ran the yarn store told us that they are very friendly and not at all dangerous, that she can go in and lean on the bulls and they won't do anything. Anyway, we met a wonderful woman in the shop. Almost as soon as we arrived she asked how we'd heard of her shop. I told her that it had been recommended to me by Danish knitters group on Ravelry, to which she replied, "oh, it's you!" She is also a Raveler, and had been part of the discussion on what shops I should visit and yarns I should find in Denmark. We talked about Kauni yarn, and the wonderful sweater designs of Ruth Sørensen. She showed us the Danish yarns, which we oohed over. We also were very clumsy Americans and kept knocking over cones of yarn or displays, but our hostess seemed to take it all in stride.

In the end, I went home with this: It's really too much yarn, and thanks to my bad skills at translating kroners to dollars, I spent much more than I realized. I have decided not to feel too guilty about it though, as none of these yarns are easy to find in the US (and definitely not in New York) and I just need to keep my yarn purchases to a minimum in the coming months.