Yesterday my family decided to go on a little day trip. Although we live only a few hours drive from Asheville, North Carolina, we've never been in the 5 years we've lived in this area. So we decided to head out for the day.
When we take these kinds of trips, we usually have two objectives. My husband's--to eat at yummy local restaurants we can't find around our house. Mine--to visit as many yarn and quilt shops as possible! ;)
So yesterday we stayed true to form and did exactly that. We managed to cram in a lot of shops in one quick visit of just a couple of hours.
First, we traveled straight through Asheville to the eastern edge of town, to Black Mountain, NC. There we visited Black Mountain Yarn Shop. The yarn store was FABULOUS, and I picked up some Spud & Chloe Sweater yarn I've been wanting to try. My daughter picked out a beautiful teal blue color and I plan on knitting her a sweater. (Did you know I used to be as obsessive a knitter as I am a quilter? It's slowed down considerably but I still love yarn and love to knit!) I also picked up a skein of Malabrigo Rios in a beautiful blue-green colorway Aguas to make myself some fingerless mitts.
The next stop was Marti's Patchwork Cottage. This was a small shop, with mostly traditional fabrics. I did a quick look around, and bought one cute bird print that my daughter picked out for me to make her a pillowcase. Even though they didn't have much that was my style, the staff was super friendly and they did have a big sale rack of prints, including a few Authentic prints, at a big discount.
Next we traveled back to Asheville and stopped at the Asheville Cotton Co. This store was quite large and had a great selection! They actually had quite a few modern prints, including lots of Heather Bailey and Amy Bulter, and even some of Anna Maria Horner's new Innocent Crush. They also had tons of great basics and many traditional fabrics as well. This was a great shop and I will definitely be back if we travel to Asheville again. They had a sale table with lots of fabrics marked between 30 and 70 percent off! I got a cute Kitty Yoshida print for 50% off (the Orange/Magenta Brocade & Circles)! They had 3 1/2 yards and I bought it all with the intention of using it as backing for a raspberry quilt I'm dreaming up for the future. I also bought a cute flowered print with ladybugs for daughter that she picked out for another pillowcase. She has been wanting a ladybug pillowcase for a while and so we finally found something cute!
After that we were off to downtown Asheville to eat at the Tupelo Honey Cafe. Oh. my. gosh. This place was awesome! It was packed with people and had lots of character, and the food was just delicious. I think this is a must-visit if you're in Asheville. They have great biscuits they give you while you wait for your food, with blackberry jelly. We had delicious pimento cheese dip with tortilla chips for an appetizer. My husband had a crab meat omelet (yum!) and I had grilled cheese with fried okra. Yum yum yum. Highly recommend it!
While walking to the restaurant from our car we stumbled across another yarn shop that I didn't even know was there! It was called Purl's Yarn Emporium and it was great. A small shop but packed full of good stuff. I picked up a skein of local yarn, a nice tweedy brown alpaca that I plan to use for a hat. I also got a skein of O-Wool Legacy Bulky in a natural color to make a hat for my daughter. Highly recommend this shop and will definitely return on the next trip to Asheville.
We did a little bit of walking around downtown Asheville (we definitely need to go back so we can have time to explore all the stuff we missed) and then headed out of town. On the way out of town we made one last stop at Yarn Paradise. This stop was in a cute old house and was filled to the brim with yarn. Lots of great stuff. While there I found some Louisa Harding Grace Hand-Dyed on the sale table for 35% off. I had seen a swatch of it knit up while at Purls and loved it, but couldn't find any on their shelves, so I passed it up. And then, lucky me, I stumble across it on the sale table at the next store. It was serendipitous! :) So I got all the skeins they had in a lovely green color (I think it's Kiwi) to make a shawl, as well as a beautiful ice blue to make who-knows-what.
So that was our day. I have to thank my husband, when we go on these trips he is usually happy to follow along to any stores I want to visit, so long as we get to visit a fun restaurant or two. That's the kind of trip I like!
Hopefully soon I'll have some finished projects (knitting or sewing!) to share. I'm off to start knitting my daughter's hat, I've already rolled the yarn into a ball... Until later!
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