this year i actually got to participate in the ARKANSAS YARN CRAWL! my friend betsy and i drove up to northwest arkansas last thursday to check out HAND HELD KNITTING (fayetteville) and MOCKINGBIRD MOON (rogers)!

hand held knitting is in this wonderful yellow house right off dickson street! the proprietor cynthia is as friendly as any yarn shop owner i’ve ever meet (and i’ve met a few)! and she has this gorgeous long white hair that i would kill for!

she has a wonderful selection of yarns and her shop models are incredible. i was super excited to see koigu, frabjous fibers cheshire cat, and tons of manos del uruguay! i picked up a few skeins of juniper moon herriot in a very dark grey, a skein of manos allegria, and three balls of lousia harding mulberry! i have no idea what i’m going to make with the mulberry but it’s 100% silk and at 75% off, it was coming home with me!

after a quick lunch at the dirty apron bakehouse, we headed up the road to rogers and mockingbird moon. y’all this shop is one of my favorites in arkansas and loralee, the owner, knows her yarn! she carries a huge variety but she has a few of my all time favorites – blue sky fibers, hedgehog, and brown sheep!

i stocked up on brown sheep nature spun sport weight. it’s my favorite fair isle wool! yes, i really like to better than jamison! i know that’s blasphemy. but there is just something about brown sheep! and it’s american made! i think she may be the only shop in arkansas to carry it!

and don’t you just love the button! loralee’s daughter (who designs fabric) created this amazing sheep and they created a button just for crawlers. plus in addition to getting your passport stamped, for every $10 spent you got a raffle ticket to enter into a drawing for the mockingbird moon raffle items. she had about 2 dozen prizes to chose from and you got to decide which prize you wanted a chance to win! i got 5 tickets so i let them ride on one prize! increased my chances right!

we sat and knitted for a little while at mockingbird moon! betsy got asked everywhere (including by the girl at the table next to us at lunch) about her sweater! yes, she knit it and the pattern is T-SHAWL by jacqueline kilmartin. the yarn is plymouth yarn taria tweed.

we wanted to make it to eureka springs as well but there just wasn’t time. i don’t see how crawlers made it to all 9 shops last year in a day (and I think a few did)! so betsy suggested an overnight girl trip in the spring to check out what eureka has to offer yarn-wise! sounds like a plan to me!

we left rogers at about 3pm and we thought we would try to make KNIT 2 TOGETHER in russellville. so we flew down the hill and made it about 10 minutes before closing! she has a ton of noro and some wonderful hand-dyes that i’d only ever heard of – never touched! i was excited to see ARKANSAS YARN CO. i’ve followed lorri ann helberg on social media but i hadn’t seen her yarn in person before! yes it is as wonderful as you think it will be!

betsy commented that we spent more time in the car than out of it but it was a wonderful day! good friends on a road trip to explore arkansas yarn shops! doesn’t get much better than that!

happy knitting!

h.