Crochet Love: The Point Cafe

I had a meeting on Varick Street on Friday, at the ungodly hour of 2:30pm (remember, I'm on night schedule). the only reason I didn't balk is because it meant I could go to The Point.

I've been in that shop before, but this time I took a really good look. I was happy with their selection of crochet books. They don't have a wide variety of hooks (mostly Clover Soft-Touch) but they have them in the same display with the knitting paraphernalia. But most importantly, they offer intermediate crochet classes on a regular basis- and as far as I know, they are the only store to do so in the NYC area.

It turns out that a good half of the staff is made up of people who know and love crochet. Not only that, they love it when you recommend books to them- I told them about my love for Debbie Kooler's Encyclopedia of Crochet, and they are going to order a copy to decide whether to stock it in the store. not only that- they are convinced that crochet is starting to make an enormous comeback, since they are getting more people who are coming in and looking for crochet supplies and patterns. They also have hard to find items like thin leather bottoms for slippers, hairpin lace kits and felting forms, and they hold spinning classes too.

So as always, show them the love and drop some change.

Crochet Love: Catskill Merino

Sometimes you really need yarn. No, I mean it. Like today- I have to make a square for a project on Ravelry, and I needed blue yarn. Now, I thought of going to my local yarn shop, but quite frankly, I find them a bit annoying. It was rainy, so I didn't want to run all over town. Thank goodness it was Saturday, because I was able to combine my food and yarn shopping at the Saturday Greenmarket.

My local Greenmarket has wonderful raw and cooked ingredients. I bought bacon today from the incomparable Violet Hill Farm- I think they have some of the best bacon in North America. I also bought some apples from Terhune Orchards, and some potatoes from yet another stand. Tonight's dinner is bacon cooked with potatoes, onions, and apples. In winter I like making as many one-dish meals as possible. It seems more homey that way, and I can do it fairly on the cheap.

Still, I needed yarn, and for this project it had to be blue. Therefore, there was only one business with whom I could shop: Catskill Merino, a farm located in Swan Lake, New York which is owned by the Wyatt family.

Catskill Merino makes yarn the old-fashioned way- they grow it on their sheep. Then they send it out to be spun, and do the dying themselves. Their yarn isn't cheap- it's $13-$16 a 125 yard skein. However, is soft, pliable, and dyed with natural dyes such as fustic, cochineal, madder, and indigo and set so they won't run. If you are looking for yarn to go into your historical project and you actually want to feel the yarn you buy, this is the way to go, since these are the very types of dyes that were used from ancient times through the early nineteenth century. The yarn takes J, K, and L size hooks, as it's thick like some of the well-known Noro yarns (needle sizes are 10, 11, or 12).

How do I know which hook sizes? Because the information sheet given to you when you buy a skein says so. Which means Catskill Merino is crochet-friendly and therefore (say it with me) deserves your business.

Crochet Love: 3-Corner Field Farm

I love 3-Corner Field Farm. It appeals to the completist in me. I discovered the farm's meat long before I even learned crochet; it happens that Karen Weinberg and her husband Paul Borghard, of Shushan, New York raise some mighty delicious organic grass-fed lamb on their sustainable family-run farm. Many of the great chefs in New York City agree; their farm sells its meat to some of the finest restaurants in town, as well as to ordinary folk like me. Then one day I saw a guy at the Greenmarket with a beautiful staff topped with a ram's horn; he said he'd gotten the horn from Karen & Co., who often sell the horns to local synagogues.

It's Karen's friendly face you see when you go to the Union Square Greenmarket on Wednesdays to buy lamb, cheese, milk soap, hats and sweaters, and full sheepskins. And wool. I love her wool. It takes Kool-aid dye wonderfully and hooks up prettily. It looks like it would be perfect for socks, although Karen says it's worsted weight; I find it's perfect for projects like laprobes for the car. I often leave in in its natural buttery-yellow state. Karen will also sell you raw fleece once shearing time is done- I can hardly wait.

While most of Karen's yarn business is with knitters and she doesn't crochet, she is extremely crochet-friendly and deserves your business. Besides, how many other yarn stores can you go to where you can pick up a skein for $10 and get a lamb shank for dinner, too?

Crochet Love: Habu and School Products

If you don't live in New York City, you really need to come for a visit. Seriously. I'm not talking about a visit so that you can go to Times Square, get in the way of workers like myself, and eat bad,overpriced renditions of bar food. No- you need to come here so you can shop for yarn like a complete and utter fool.

Why do I tell you this? It's simple. If you have sent even 5 minutes watching Martha Stewart and then look up the stores where her minions get her goods, most of them are in New York. The city is still a garment center, and it caters to many of the top designers. What does that mean for you, my little ducklings? It means you get to clean up at a discount.

Let's take Habu. It's in an unassuming building in the wholesale district. By suburban yarn shop standards, the neighborhood looks scary. But it isn't. Really. Trust me on this one. You can get off the bus at Port Authority and walk a few blocks to Habu, witch is off the ground floor, and since you are off the street you are in civilization again. You go down the hall, ring the bell, and some nice Japanese women will help you with stuff you've never seen before. The place is crazy- the place looks like an incredibly cool teahouse filled with textiles and yarn. The place offers weaving lessons, too, as that's their main market. They see to a lot of knitters, but on the day that I went, when I told them I was a crocheter, they were thrilled. They want to see more of us.

Anything you might ever want to crochet, they probably have it. Steel wire, linen tape, bamboo- it's there. I was in the mood for spring colors when I went, so I bought lots of lavender stuff. I could just as easily gone dark- Habu stocks lots of browns and blacks. They have yarn that looks like seaweed, and ribbon, and everything. This is beyond novelty yarn- this is art. Plus, they have constant sales, where you can buy little bags of yarn balls for $15-$20, so you can try out what the have and use the rest for edging, or plying with your own yarn.

I have to warn you- this place is not cheap. I dropped $60 or so in there without blinking an eye- but I intend to go back, especially now that I spin. But when you get back to your local crochet or spinning guild, you will be cackling your ass off and everyone will hate you. So there.

Of course, if you really want them to hate you, you need to walk a couple of blocks over from Habu and go to School Products. Ignore the name, sweetie- this place is not for kids. Why is it calls 'School Products'? I don't know- because 'Spend Your Last Dime Products' doesn't sound as good. Cashmere in cones? Check. Some yarn that Donna Karan ended up not using? Sure. Some no muss-no fuss Lamb's Pride? Uh-huh. Plus hooks and needles and ball winders. You are not going to get designer-quality cashmere thread in quantity any cheaper in New York. Even the Italian acrylic looks tasty. If you have any money left from shopping at Habu, you can come in here and give School Products some. Just remember that since they buy a lot of their yarn from designers and facotries, the stock changes seasonally, and sometimes they won't have what you like. Forget coming here with a set laundry list. Just go with the flow. If you have any money left after all this shopping, you can head downtown on the N/R and eat dim sum in Chinatown- I recommend Mandarin Court. Have some baked roast pork buns and picture yourself lording it over your friends when you get back home rubbing your hands together as you point out the yarn used in the Chanel jackets this year.

Crochet Love: My Dream Crochet Shop

Caution- Irony and satire ahead. In reality I do not hate knitters, nor do I dislike the CGOA. However, I think this needed to be said.

Recently, some of us on Ravelry were talking about crochet on the CLF group. Mermaiden suggested that instead of 'crochet-friendly' signs in the windows of yarn stores, there should be 'knitting-friendly' signs. I agreed, and in a fit of total insanity due to sleep deprivation, not enough St. John's Wort or vodka, and a general perversity, I wrote the following:

Yes. And we’ll have the cheapest and crappiest needles for them to buy. And we’ll sell lots of crochet thread, and tatting shuttles, and embroidery frames- and five skeins of Red Heart in the back, near the cat box. We’ll have ‘Hook and Cook’ meetings where we’ll bring snacks, and lots of free patterns for crocheters with pictures in color- and one really grainy xerox of a knitting pattern from 1955 for an ugly pair of socks. There will be beautifully carved crochet hooks available, and when people enter the store, we’ll ask them what they are crocheting, and give them great service. We’ll know exactly what size hook each kind of yarn and thread takes. But if knitters want to know the needle size for the yarn, we won’t look at the package. We’ll just look at them blankly, and vaguely gesture towards the Red Heart that smells like cat pee. We also won’t say anything if other shoppers sneer at the idea that anyone would knit, and we’ll talk about how ‘old-fashioned’ it is next to ‘modern’ crochet. We will have a knitting teacher- she’ll be a private contractor who will charge ridiculous amounts of money for one lesson, and she will only teach the basics. Meanwhile the store itself will have monthly classes on everything from doilies to spinning crochet thread, and crochet book authors will regularly be invited to the store.

We will have a book for ‘crocheters and knitters’- it will have one knitting pattern (for socks) and the book will cost at least $25. The author will make disparaging and condescending remarks about knitting in her other books, and talk about how she only recently learned how to knit so she could make some socks, since that’s all knitting is really good for.

Every year the store will join with other stores and major yarn brands, and have a ‘Crochet-in! and Knit’. The yarn companies will give away fabulous free items to crocheters including samples of sumptuous yarn- the knitters will get goody bags with one out of date magazine and patterns for garish baby socks from the cheaper brands. The crocheters will have a fashion show, famous crocheters signing their books, a display of hyperbolic crochet, and seminars on how to write patterns- and the knitters will get one tiny table on the outskirts of the event, with four chairs and a person from the local knitting guild, who will show them how to make socks. There will be a tent set up to teach all levels of crochet technique, a crochet clinic, and so on- and a smaller tent where only continental knitting will be shown. People who can’t grasp it will be told that it’s the only real kind there is. There won’t be any left-handed knitters there either. A small table will be there for the aging members of the local knitting guild, who will give out xeroxed patterns for socks, with no pictures to speak of. And if a single knitter complains, we’ll tell them that we understand, and that one day, when they learn a real craft like crochet, none of it will be a big deal.

Crochet Love: The Joy of Handspinning

I suffer, unofficially at least, from OCD. Although I've never been diagnosed, there's something downright peculiar about how I will latch onto an idea or project and not be able to let it go until I thoroughly understand it. So, this being true, I can't blame Camanomade from Ravelry for my yarn obsession- it was already there. But I can say that her talking about spinning was like offering a baby a lit firecracker.

A couple of weeks ago, even though it was the middle of the night for me and blistering cold, I went over to one of my favorite yarn shops and bought a top-whorl spindle and some roving. Did I know how to use one? No. Did I have an instructor nearby? No. Do I live in the country, and wear gingham? No, not unless gingham comes in black on black. But I didn't let my obvious lack of not knowing the fuck what I was doing stop me. Why? Because I'm OCD, I'd been obsessing for a week, and I have access to the interwebs- and this site.

I don't know who these people are. All I know is that the writing on the site was so calm and easy-going that I felt reassured. After reading the instructions and looking at the pictures, I managed to spin some honest-to-goodness yarn that looked good, and I did it without dropping my spindle even once. This is of course proof that the site owners are Tools and Minions of Satan, because now I'm ready to spin anything- I may even kidnap my neighbors' dog, comb him, and spin his hair before the weekend is out. Who knows? I may shave my boyfriend's head and use his hair, too. Or my own. Anything could happen. If you see me with a pair of clippers and a fiendish gleam in my eye, just cover your head and blame The Joy of Handspinning website.

Crochet love: Thank you, Adriann!

I received a wonderful note on Ravelry the other day from a woman named Adriann. It seems she's a crocheter, and so far I'm the only New York-based crocheter she's seen on Ravelry. She offered me her extra copy of the 2008 Crochet-a-Day calendar if I was willing to pick it up from her job, which just happens to be near my apartment.

I've really been wanting the calendar, so I said yes. This morning I went and picked it up from her, and left while she clocked in.

Sometimes the universe is a wonderful place.

Crochet Love: Knitty City

Ah, Knitty City. How I love you. Your yarns are beautiful and well-selected, you welcome crocheters, you hold crochet classes, and you are a stone's throw from both Central Park and the American Museum of Natural History. Your shop is cramped, but in an Aladdin's Cave kind of way, and your lighting is bright enough for people to see the real color of the yarns and threads you sell. You even have Brittany hooks, and you are willing to order anything a crocheter might desire. It's a good thing you don't have a cafe, or I would move in and sleep on the floor. Still, there are plenty of restaurants nearby where I can ply my hook in solitary splendor and rapture. Damn you, Knitty City- you've captured my heart.