LYS Goodies

Both of my LYSs have donated prizes for the blogiversary raffle—without my even having asked for them! As a way of saying thank you (and, I hope, of whetting your appetite for the great prizes) I thought I’d devote one entry this week to each of them.

First up: Article Pract, my Oakland LYS.

Coming soon: The Golden Fleece, my Santa Cruz LYS.

Melissa and I found Article Pract by luck a bit over a year ago when we were heading for dinner at a favorite Ethiopian Restaurant, Asmara. As you might imagine, we experienced a sudden detour and wound up at the restaurant rather later than we’d expected.

You can see what drew me inside…

… the sock yarns are just to the left of the door, all sorts of hand-dyeds in glorious colors that reduce knitters to gibbering, fiber-petting fools.

On the right are Rowan and Louisa Harding, with Curious Creek further to the back. On the left are Malabrigo, Manos, and much, much more.

If you look toward the far end of the store, you’ll see the hallway into the back room, where the (yum!) yarn tastings are held.

Besides carrying delicious yarns, Article Pract has one of the best selections I’ve ever seen of knitting bags, many of them locally-crafted.

My favorite things about Article Pract?
• The owner, Christine, who is kind, generous, and smart. (Check out her blog, A Fist Full of Stitches.)
• The yarn tastings, which are held monthly (on the second Sunday). For just $10, you get samples of ten or so yarns, sometimes by a single manufacturer, sometimes of a similar weight or fiber content, along with a one-time 25% off coupon good for the featured yarns and related patterns. Christine, who is a wonderful cook, provides snacks and drinks. You can sit, eat, knit up your samples, and wander the shop to look at alternate colorways for the yarns. It all adds up to an hour-and-a-half of convivial company, tactile pleasure, and shopping thrills.

And here’s the Article Pract contribution to the blogiversary raffle…

… a Get to Know Hemp Knitting Kit that includes four skeins of hemp yarn, a pair of patterns (for a washcloth and a scarf), needles, a hemp project bag, and a larger tote.

P.S. The shop’s name? It’s a spoonerism for Practical Art!