Monday, August 09, 2010

My Yarn Crawl

Work takes me many places and sometimes a slight detour makes the day more bearable. This past week has illustrated that.

Last Thursday I needed to visit with some downtown business people in Danville, PA which is in Montour County. We were discussing small businesses and I asked if the local yarn shop was still open. One man quickly said, "yes" and that he thought his wife's paycheck was directly deposited into the shop's bank account!

I went around a block and there was a very unassuming one-story brown wooden building that frankly has seen better days. I ventured into Swisher's Yarn Basket at 327 Ferry St. and was pleased with what I saw and the genuine warmth of the greeting I received from the owner. She retired 8 years ago and said she was bored after 3 weeks so opened the yarn shop. She also has a small amount of counter cross-stitch remaining in her inventory and is trying to get rid of all of it since that craft isn't as popular as it was a few years ago.

The shop is welcoming. The middle of the room hosts a large circle of chairs with soft pads on the seats...just inviting customers to sit and knit a bit...which some people were doing. Unfortunately, I couldn't stay that long or I would have joined them.

The selection was well organized, the shop is clean, and she sells a good variety of yarns -- everything from some higher end fingering weight yarns to Galway worsted weight wool to Encore worsted weight acrylic/wool blends. She truly has yarns for all tastes, I think. I will definitely visit the shop again when I'm in town.

Today I headed to Gettysburg in southern PA for our all-staff retreat which begins bright and early in the morning. Most colleagues will be arriving later today. I did some work visits as I traveled along Route 322.

One of my favorite stops during Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival each May in Maryland is the large booth operated by the staff of The Mannings Handweaving School in East Berlin, PA. Now I'm neither a spinner nor a weaver but I know they have lots of yarn and patterns. It was delightful to see their huge store, the beautiful setting and just browse. Well worth the trip if you haven't been there.

1 comment:

Rob Knits said...

I love yarn crawls. A nice part of traveling.