Black Sheep Knittery – The Lyf So Short

More on the sale at the late, lamented Black Sheep Knittery…

To the left, see a close-up of some beautiful Louisa Harding Sari Ribbon in four different colorways. There are plans to make a garter stitch/drop stitch scarf from the variegated red skein on the far right. The rest will be used for fringe, or will be woven into the knitted stitches of a shawl, or… who knows? At 75% off, I felt like I could splurge on ribbon yarn, which I usually consider a luxury.

Most of my other purchases were bulky wools and variegated hand-dyes, the kinds of “33 yards to a skein” yarns you usually feel way to guilty (not to mention ridiculous) buying. What exactly do they think you’re going to be able to do with 33 yards?

Here’s a close-up of half of my haul, arrayed on my sofa:

And the other half arrayed on my trunk:

I know what you’re thinking: “Enough yarn porn, stitch geek! Just cut to the chase–exactly how much money did you save?” Well, I’m glad you asked, even if you did drag me away from fantasies of throwing all my stash on the floor and rolling around in it…. Ahem! But I digress….

Since admitting how much I spent makes me blush and stammer (even more than talking about rolling around in piles of yarn), let’s put it this way: if I had bought all of this yarn and assorted knitting accessories at regular retail prices, it would have cost me $2261.58 (without tax). I paid less than 25% of that. Yes, I did the math. There’s a surprising amount of math involved in being a semi-professional stitch geek.

I leave you with one last bit of yarn porn: Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride, the stuff felting dreams are made on…. This is my absolute favorite felting yarn, the 15% mohair makes a beautiful halo, and it comes in practically every color of the rainbow. It’s also quite affordable, even when it’s not priced below wholesale. This sale will enable me to afford to make the big bulletin board and laptop from one of my favorite recent releases, Leigh Radford’s Alterknits. Check it out and be inspired. And let me know if you want to start a “Lace-Up Shawl” KAL. I’m so there!

Black Sheep Knittery, a much-beloved knitting store in Hollywood, is closing. Rumor has it that the owner is growing tired of her commute and wants to relocate closer to home. Apparently, she already has a new site picked out.

Here in the Los Angeles area, we are spoiled for choice when it comes to yarn shops. Here’s the link to the LA Stitch ‘n’ Bitch (are we allowed to use that term anymore? what’s up with that law suit?) list of local yarn shops. Go ahead, look. I’ll be here when you get back…

However, with all this choice comes competition, and what with the cooling off of the Stitch ‘n’ Bitch trend and the approach of the hot Southern California summer, it’s sad to see a yarn store go away, even though it looks like it will be back soon. More than one of those shops on that list is experiencing difficulties and is planning on downsizing or going out of business. I suppose it was inevitable that the knitting craze was bound to taper off, but I am going to adopt an uncharacteristically optimistic attitude and predict that knitting is here to stay.

Although I am sad to see Black Sheep go, I must say that the deals were fantastic! I doubt that I will ever see deals this good again in my lifetime. No exaggeration–all yarn was 75% off. That’s lower than wholesale, folks. My only regret is that I didn’t realize sooner that this sale was the real deal.

Still, I got some amazing deals (more below) and here are a couple photos to give you an idea of the place. This shot was taken from the loft, where I was almost buried in lovely, luxurious bulky Rowan and Debbie Bliss. Mmmmmmm….. bulky yarn…..

And here’s another showing my roommate packing up all our yarn purchases in these amazing IKEA vinyl bags we just bought the other day:

Check out those groovy lampshades! This sale was so amazing, that I went on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, each day vowing it would be my last visit. On Saturday, I ran into the amazing Ellen Bloom of LA is my Beat.

Here are all my purchases arrayed on my sofa and trunk:

This should keep me off the streets for quite some time. And I just got my stash organized and cataloged in my characteristically geeky way–whatever shall I do? Unfortunately, I must go now! More to come soon….

Update 01/24/10: all the links in this post appear to be dead now; I’m not surprised about the Black Sheep Knittery link, of course, but the Stitch n Bitch LA link is something of a surprise. I guess the SnB trend really is over.