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Our WEBS road trip


Twinnish

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Yesterday morning, bright and early, my clone Rena Tyrantina and I set out on a road trip to celebrate the anniversary of our birth. Our destination: WEBS yarn store, Northampton, MA (AKA yarn Mecca).

 

Starbuck Vanilla Latte bravely clutched in hand, Rena Tyrantina pointed her pretty blue car westward and we headed out. We sneered at the poor souls stuck in commuter traffic heading east on the Mass Pike. We marveled at the bad weather forecast gone good. In what seemed like no time (an hour and a half), we pulled up to the door of WEBS...an hour and ten minutes before they opened.

 

Fortunately, my enterprising sister had done some research the previous night, so we zipped across the Connecticut River and climbed My Holyoke (elevation 940 feet) in her car and spent an hour admiring the view from the Summit House, a remnant of a once popular mountaintop hotel.

 

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At ten minutes to ten we hustled down the mountain and back over to WEBS. Yay, the open flag is up! We saw cars from Pennsylvania and Ohio parked out front. Folks come a long way to shop here. For good reason.

 

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Choirs of angels sang as we walked in the door. Man, I couldn't believe the amount of yarn before my eyes! Then, we attached drool buckets to our chins and wandered the store. The selection addled our brains. We didn't know where to look next. So many nice yarns! So many nice colors!

 

This picture is just a feeble representation, limited by the limitations of my camera. There were many, many more shelves like these.

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Here is a table they have set up for people to peruse the multitudinous selections of books and patterns they have available:

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You can see more yarn selection behind the table.

 

In the ginormous back room, they have rows and rows of discounted yarns. Here's a picture of the first few shelves of one row. See all those cardboard boxes towards the front of the picture? That's even more discounted yarn.

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In this picture, Rena Tyrantina admires some samples made up from yarn from the display. Drool has been digitally removed! :D

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We spent two hours in there. If it hadn't been for plummeting blood sugar levels, we probablywould have purchased cots and moved in permanently. We had lots of fun fondling the yarn and marveling at the sheer volume of yarn. We plan to go back again, one day! If you live within a few hours driving distance, it is well worth the trip.

 

A side note: if you ever get to Herrell's Ice Cream in downtown Northampton, be sure to try the Burnt Sugar and Butter flavor ice cream. I'm still having fantasies about it and it wasn't even the flavor of the ice cream I got!

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I would just like to say that those pictures don't even begin to do justice to the place. I could have spent all day just looking at the sample projects! They even have sample projects made from the back room yarn.

 

I didn't even have a work in mind when I went in and still managed to spend $55 on yarn. I probably would have spent more if I wasn't starving. Note to self: Eat large breakfast before going to WEBS next time. Because who can wait until after lunch to go there?

 

I thought it was well worth the long drive. Especially for the discounted yarn in the back room. We're talking Noro, Filatura Di Crosa, Debbie Bliss, Rowan, Tahki and more that I can't remember in that back room.

 

And the employees were so nice, pleasant and happy to help. They even have some comfy chairs with some magazines for the non-yarn loving companions of the shoppers.

 

And after you drag yourself away, Northampton has plenty of restaurants and funky shops (and yet another nice, but much smaller yarn shop, Northampton Wools) to while away your time. Not to mention the delightful ice cream of Herrell's.

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Janelle, when I look at all that amazing yarn, I tend to think: I'm too new at crochet, I couldn't do it justice, I'm not worthy!! But looking back now, I'm thinking I should have bought more, it's an hour and a half drive for crying out loud! (Which is a long drive for me, life-long resident of Suburbia. Why isn't there an "I'm a whiner" Smiley?)

So next time--and there will definitely be a next time--I'll make sure I buy more!! But for what it's worth, that $55 did buy me 9 skeins of good yarn.

 

Nevadamomma, thank you for the birthday wishes. I'm sure my sister will come back to this post and tell you she doesn't mind sharing her birthday. She's always had to share it with me!!

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Sister, you are right. I don't mind sharing my birthday at all, having shared it for 44 years! Nevadamama, thanks for the birthday wishes!

 

I don't know why that text came out bolded like that. Very bizarre. I tried to fix it and had no luck. Oh well!

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I spent a little less than that. Unfortunately, we need to be frugal at Chez Twinnish. It would have been soooo easy to spend much more! When I get that chance (although it may not be until Tuesday) I'll post a pic of the 14 skeins of yarn I got for less than $50 including two skeins of Noro.

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green green green were my thoughts two. I can almost hear the angels singing as well. What a fantastic day out!

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That sounds great...it's an hour and a half trip for me too according to map quest..hmmmmmmm.....

how discounted is discounted? hahah! I have never been to something like that. I did venture to some local shops and nearly passed out at the $20 a skein price tags. weewwww

thanks for sharing.

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There are some pricey yarns at WEBS. There are skeins that are 37, 40 dollars, hand woven yarns that come in 300+ yards. I saw yarn there in the front room from $5 and up, probably a nicer five dollar skein of yarn than you could get at AC Moore or Michael's. The back room had yarn as cheap as 2.50 a skein. Quite a bit of it was 3.49 a skein. When I get home I'll take a picture of the yarn I got and post it.

 

Let me just tell you, I am a cheapo. To fork out more than 3 bucks for a skein of yarn it's got to be nice yarn. I paid 6 and some change per skein for the two skeins of Noro I bought. This is a splurge for me. I've found it on the internet priced at $8.50

 

Rena Tyrantina got some nice alpaca yarn for around 6 dollars a skein. She'll have to fill you in on that. All I remember that it was very, very soft and that I thought the price was good considering how nice the yarn seemed.

 

Sahmlock, you ought to see if you can gather some interested CVillers to share a road trip with you to WEBS. That way you could split the gas cost and if you didn't find much to your liking you wouldn't have spent too much on gas. You could also drive to the top of Mount Holyoke and enjoy the view and peruse the downtown shops while you were there.

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I'll scan the yarn I bought tomorrow. The three skeins of Filatura Di Crosa ZarOne I bought is almost all made up into a scarf. And of course I wish I had bought more.

 

I really want to go back there. I had yarn withdrawal so badly the next day that I popped into Fabric Place to do some yarn fondling.

 

And DesertCrocheter, your response got me to thinking, are there other, equally awesome yarn shops elsewhere in the country/world? Places that are worth a special trip? I think it's time to start a new thread!!

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