You could have said Dennis…

I turn 37 on Monday. Now, usually I’m less fond of birthdays in the latter half of a decade (they all feel downhill to me, for some reason), but 37 is special. In addition to being immortalized in cinema (in Clerks as well as Monty Python, but, uh, I won’t link to that scene), 37 is just a cool number. Not only is it prime, but it’s the very first irregular prime, and for a math nerd like me that’s pretty exciting. It’s the normal human body temperature in Celsius. Neat! It’s the number of plays Shakespeare is thought to have written if you count Henry IV as three parts! (Okay, I had to wikipedia for that last one.)

Point is, I’m unusually chipper about this birthday. To celebrate, I’m going to have an entire truckload of Jeni’s ice cream this weekend while I visit TNNA. Since I won’t actually be here on my birthday, and since I feel badly that I can’t bring ice cream back for all of you, I thought it would be fun to celebrate my birthday with a giveaway.

Giving away 37 things seems more than a bit excessive, though, so I started thinking about fun themes. I spotted some yarn from my very first trip to Rhinebeck, sitting next to yarn from my first trip to Sock Summit, and I thought–aha! How about a giveaway of yarn from my knitting travels? Giving away 6 different things seemed to make sense–I can never keep up with blogiversaries, but I’ve been doing this thing for 6 years now. So here we go!

Here’s how it will work. You leave a comment sharing something fiber-related about either a birthday or a trip, and I will pick 6 random winners when I get back next week. On Wednesday, June 27 (six days from now!), I’ll announce the winners and we’ll all live happily ever after.

Here’s the loot:

First trip to WEBS. Shibui Sock Yarn, color 7498, 2 hanks.

First (?) “oh my god everyone online is buying this indie dyer’s yarn I must have some!” internet craziness. And well worth all the hype, too! This is Plucky Knitter single-ply 100% merino sock yarn, in “Pumpkin Spice Latte”, from around October of 2007. (By the way, I had to root through blog archives a bit to find this. I can’t believe Jacob was ever that little! I’ll have to take updated kiddo pics sometime soon and compare them.)

First Rhinebeck. This lovely Shelridge Farms sock yarn (2 hanks, “Nutmeg”) is deliciously soft wool and colored like fall in New England. Plus, they’re fantastically lovely folks.

First Stitches. This luminous 100% silk typically sits in my ‘yarn inspiration’ bowl because it is so lovely. 3 hanks of Fiesta La Luz in “Palomino”, perfect for a scarf or some such.

First Sock Summit. This merino-cashmere-silk blend lives up to its name: Breathless by Shalimar Yarns. One hank in Sapote. I am plotting a sweater in this stuff. More than one knitter has gasped upon touching it.

I was tossing the stash, trying to pick a 6th prize and failing, and cursing myself for not buying much of anything in the many many trips I’ve been taking to teach. (In my non-shopper defense, I have LOTS of yarn.) And then I thought: Well, how about recognizing the past couple of years as a travel, and give away some designs?

So, in honor of the first time I’ve ever turned my hobby into a highly enjoyable side business, the 6th bit of loot will be a complete set of all of my self-published designs. Happy birthday to me!

(And so on.)

Whew! Still with me? If so, remember that you need to leave a comment sharing something fiber-related about either a birthday or a trip to qualify, and I’ll see you on the 27th!

235 thoughts on “You could have said Dennis…

  1. Happy Birthday!!

    Sadly there hasn’t been a lot of travelling to fibre fairs for me (or any!) but DH is now completely aware that no matter where we travel to,I will NEED to go and find a LYS or a local indie dyer to make my trip worthwhile. He doesn’t even complain about it anymore!

  2. Happy Birthday Amy! 37 is NOT in the second half, you are just getting started. I remember my first trip to Janesville, WI for a weekend knitting retreat and what a treat it was to sit and knit while surrounded by all the vendors with beautiful yarns to choose from. Next best thing was to return the next year and take a class with you on Fit to Flatter. You change my garment knitting life. Thank you and here’s to many, many more wonderful birthdays.

  3. Wow! What a way to celebrate! I have to admit that I always pick yarn as my way to remember a trip. I have this beautiful forest green mohair/wool lace weight from a trip to Montana and you made me smile when you talked about your “inspiration bowl” because that is right where that yarn has ended up for two years now. I just can’t seem to find something worthy of it yet! 🙂 Happy Birthday!

  4. Happy Birthday! Before I visit any new cities, I ALWAYS search online for the cool yarn stores to visit in that city. What would traveling be without new and exciting yarn stores to explore?

  5. You look fantastic Amy and (an early) happy birthday!
    Fibre + trip = Just getting ready for another trip that will have time for knitting. It’s work, but I travel in small planes a lot for work so am lucky to knit to some amazing scenery. I like being able to connect FOs to the time(s) and place(s) (I am sloo-oo-ow) they were knit…. brings back memories of all the places that were knit into the FO.

  6. Happy Birthday… 37 IS a great number. You have so much to be proud of and celebrate:) My fiber story is how my former college students who spent a semester abroad would bring back something yarny or fibery for me. It was such a joy: yarn, native fabric, trims, all kinds of fabulous surprises.
    Happy, Happy B’day!

  7. Happy Birthday! It might interest you to know that my mom (age 65) and her friends (all a very active bunch) have decided that they all feel like they are 37. Apparently it is a good age! Last year for my 40th birthday (which still shocks me. 40!), my husband surprised me with a spinning wheel. It softened the blow, that’s for sure!

  8. I love bringing back commemorative skeins from trips – finally knitting with them is always a special treat and I will totally admit to leaving some extra space in luggage for a skein or three when packing. heh. Happy Birthday!

  9. how’s this for a fabulous Mum!. For my 36th birthday she got me a sock and mitt club subscription – yarn for a whole year!

  10. Happy Birthday! I hope that you enjoy yourself tremendously!

    I have to say that I (selfishly) knit mostly for myself. However, for birthdays and Christmas I try to have something hand-knitted for my girls. This year though, I think my baby may have to get hers early as she keeps pulling yarn out of my drawer and asking, in her own way, for a sweater. “Knit? Me??? Sweater?” How can I resist?

  11. Birthday wishes to you. May you have a great one and many more.

    I ALWAYS buy (way too much) yarn (and fabric)when I’m in Portland, Or. How can such a small city/population have so many great and varied LYS? Seriously, why can’t more places be like that?

  12. The best thing about traveling is that I have an understanding with the DH that my fiber diet does not apply to vacation yarn! I will be joining you at 37 soon, so soon!

  13. Hey, I turned 37 this year too! A very happy birthday to you.

    My best fiber related trip was my drive from LA to Oregon a few years ago. Julia and I drove up together, and stopped at yarn and fiber shops and spun and knit in the redwoods and at crater lake. It was a good trip, indeed.

  14. Happy early birthday! Ice cream at TNNA sounds like a fab way to celebrate to me!

    You’ve got me thinking… I’ll be 40 this fall. Since my birthday is two weeks after Rhinebeck, a trip there might be in order!

    One of my best birthdays was early on in our marriage, when my husband and I took a trip down to the Outer Banks. My birthday is right before Halloween, which is my husband’s favorite holiday. We went out for a nice diner, and then late that night, we sat on the beach, wrapped up in blankets, and my husband read me ghost stories by flashlight. 😉

    For my husband’s 40th a few years ago, we left the kids with my parents so we could have a romantic weekend alone. But on our way, I surprised him with tickets to a big amusement park, just to remind him he was still a kid at heart. 🙂

    Hope your birthday makes you feel like a kid again, too!

  15. Happy Birthday! I remember once on a four-hour train layover in Munich running around town trying to find “Oktoberfest” (I was there in September, the correct month!) I never quite found the main event, but I did stumble across a yarn shop and bought a couple of skeins of sock yarn. I barely made it back to my train on time!

  16. First of all…Happy Birthday!!!

    What a cool giveaway! Thank you!

    My short story is about birthdays and fiber! For the last 2 years I have been celebrating my birthday with, what I like to call, “Knitting Trips”! Either I fly to NYC to visit Knitty City, Lion Brand Studio, The Yarn company and others, or I go west and visit Bay Area stores as Imagiknits, Article Pract, AVKW and Lace Store & Museum!
    Not sure about this year…But I really hope that I’m gonna be able to celebrate with fiber and fun!

    happy Birthday!
    Paula

  17. Happy birthday! Enjoy the Jeni’s at TNNA! 🙂

    I still think fondly of what was my second trip to MD S&W– it was my Mom’s first time at MD S&W! It was so much fun to wander around with her in all of the barns (I’m sure at 16 I never would have expected to say that). 🙂

  18. Happy birthday! My fibery goodness involves a four-hour drive to East Jordan to visit Stonehedge Fiber Mill on 4th of July weekend. (Technically it was a two hour drive, but it’s four hours from MY house, not where I was staying that weekend) We shall not speak of the amount of money that was spent in the ‘yarn shack’.

  19. Happy early birthday! I’m sharing a story that’s both trip AND birthday related. The first year I went to Stitches West, I was actually not allowing myself to buy much sock yarn, and I’d asked my best friend to help me with this. So, much of the time we were on the floor, I admired sock yarns, she reminded me how much Koigu I had, and then I would pout and put it back and walk away. I didn’t know it at the time, but she actually came back around to one of those booths without me, and picked up two of the skeins she saw me admiring – so she could give them to me for my birthday a few weeks later.

  20. Happy Birthday! I’ve told my kids that for birthdays the best present would be a gift certificate to my LYS for yarn or Amazon for a book. I got both this year!

  21. Happy Birthday!! You give me hope that I can accept 37 so gracefully when its my turn in 15 months.

    I remember my first fiber event..I had been knitting maybe a month after teaching myself from the Knitting for Dummies book. I had never met another knitter and tapped into the community through the popular blogs of the day (in 2002!) On someones blog I came across some mention of Stitches West and when I looked into it further I realized it was in Burbank that weekend just a few miles from my place to Hollywood. Well I went was was intimidated by all the yarns, needles and people who seemed to know so much more than me. I never did talk to anyone there but I did manage to buy my first eyelash yarn and size 15 needles! Needless to say, a scarf was made that I still have to this day to remind me how far I have come in my craft as well as the knitting community.

  22. Happy birthday Amy! Two years ago on my birthday I was offered an opportunity to take a Shirley Padin seminar gratis. Sadly we were on our way to a family wedding and I could not be in 2 places at one time.

    Good news though, I was able to take your Fit to Flatter workshop offered by our knitting guild this year.

  23. I just learned to knit a year ago and got completely and utterly addicted. A couple months after I started my husband and I did a road trip getaway for a few days. He was very kind and offered to stop at LYSs on the way home since “seeing you happy makes me happy.” So out came the Google maps and a path designed to pass several of them.

  24. Happy Birthday!!!!!
    This year for my birthday my love got me a swift and ball winder!!! This was surprising becasue I hadn’t even mentioned to him about getting one!! He told me he was tired of holding yarn for me when I wound it into a ball 🙂 It was a lovely gift and one I use quite often!!!

  25. I’m planning tomorrow’s trip to Black Sheep Gathering. Okay, it’s only like 40 miles from where I live and I’m not even staying over night, so maybe it doesn’t really count as a trip. But all that lovely yarn! My challenge will be to not bring it all home with me.

  26. Happy 37th! I hope you have a wonderful day and year.

    I don’t often buy souvenirs, but last year when I was in Maine I came upon a little display of String Theory yarn and fell in love with a hank of their sock yarn in the most beautiful shades of blue. I’ve knit four pairs of socks since I took up knitting again, and all have been in dark colors. The String Theory yarn has been in my stash for almost a year now, and I just cast on with it a few days ago. It feels wonderful in my hands as I knit, and the color is so cheerful! I think I’m enjoying this sock project more than the previous ones simply because the yarn is so delightful. This is a souvenir I’m really glad I bought!

  27. Last summer, after our (really tiny) wedding and a little bit before our (really exciting) honeymoon to Spain, my husband and I made the 5-hour roadtrip to Portland to go to Sock Summit. It was our pre-honeymoon, as we stopped that night to camp before driving all the way home. We had a fantastic time going to the market at Sock Summit, crossing the river to the brewfest, and then camping that night. I actually wore my wedding shawl to the market at Sock Summit and got so many compliments! Now when I wear the shawl, I have double the good memories! Every time I knit with the yarn I bought (which wasn’t much), or use the project bag that I bought there, I think about that lovely trip.

  28. Yay, welcome to the 37 club! I feel quite irregularly prime. All good.

    One of the funnest parts of traveling is announcing to my sweetie how many yarn shops we will be going to. This involves much advance research but is always worth it. He’s not one to be left at a cafe while I go drool in LYSs, so he tends to accompany me and doesn’t complain too much. 🙂

    Thanks for the giveaways! And Happy, Happy Birthday to you.

  29. Happy Birthday!! This isn’t exactly a trip story but it involves travelling. When I started to get into knitting when I moved away from home after college and was living on my own for the first time. Since then I have moved a few more times and started a log cabin blanket with scraps as well as yarns full of memories. THere are yarns from different trips, friends who have “donated” and so on. It’s still a work in progress but every time I work on it it reminds me of why I’m a knitter!

  30. My partner has taken to researching yarn shops and alpaca farms on our road trips, and for my 49th birthday took me to a local alpaca farm, where I was the recipient of a faceful of alpaca spit and partially chewed grain! It was quite amusing and I left with a hank of alpaca laceweight made from a fleece of that same animal.

    And 37 is a very fun birthday, so enjoy it completely. Your friends and family do subscribe to the “birthday week” I hope.

  31. Happy birthday, you young whippersnapper (from someone whose last birthday involved a round number and the digit 6).

    My first trip to WEBS was on a birthday. It was for a Yarn Harlot signing, but, of course, I bought stuff. And then I discovered CT Sheep & Wool, which is always within a week of my birthday. It’s low key enough that I can see everything, without being overwhelmed by crowds or yarn/fiber fumes. And there’s a wonderful vendor who sells vintage buttons.

  32. The short story about one of my birthdays is that my husband proposed on my 30th birthday. The slightly longer version of that story is that we had gone out for steak (one of my favourite things), then to a choral concert (another fave) at the New Music Festival (yup, another fave). Apparently he’d had the ring with him the entire time, but waited until we were back at his place after all of it to bring it out and propose.

    Definitely a memorable birthday!

  33. Happy birthday! I’m just a year older than you. 🙂 My favorite fibery travel experience was a couple of years ago when I was lucky enough to travel to London, seeking out a little shop called iKnit. It was a tiny shop, but stuffed with yarn, and I picked up a couple of balls of Blacker Gotland 4-ply. I still haven’t knit them because I can’t figure out what would be special enough!

  34. Happy 37th! Fiber related story…first visit to Fiber Space, my favorite LYS! Walking in with all the color and yarn, I felt like a kid at a candy store. And the staff, not only helpful and knowledgeable, but NICE!

  35. Happy birthday Amy 🙂

    Speaking of fiber-event-related firsts, I’m off to my first knitterly get-together, Black Sheep Gathering, this weekend! I’m super excited to see the beautiful sheepies and all my favorite Oregon knitters!

  36. Not much travelling to fiber events on my side. I do always bring my trusty knitting when on travel. That does not always pan out well – I was working on gloves made with fingering yarn, during a very long trip to Asia, and after a few hours, realized I had put in two thumb gussets. Lesson learned: don’t knit while sleep deprived.

  37. Happy Birthday! What a fun giveaway! I love all the neat stuff about 37!

    One fiber related activity I remember was a fun vacation trip with a friend to California. She and I, along with our kids, drove from Texas to California and we stopped at every major city we could to shop for yarn. It was so fun! It took us a little longer to get there, but it was fun. We were also able to stop at a few In ‘n Out Burgers to appease the kids!

  38. Happy Birthday! On our honeymoon in Costa Rica, we happened upon a store that had yarn in the window. I found a cone of some lovely lavender yarn that was just labeled “lana”, which is Spanish for wool. It wasn’t very expensive, so I bought it as a memory of our honeymoon. My sense of touch has developed since then, and when I pulled out the cone of yarn recently, I was a little surprised to realize that the yarn is 100% acrylic.

  39. Happy Birthday Amy (might I add how wonderfully happy you look?)
    My yarn travels mostly happen on line, and I have picked up some glorious stash – more than I can ever hope to use, but patterns – its not possible to have too many to choose from 🙂

  40. Happy Birthday Amy!

    I went to WEBS for the first time last summer and was there all day. The hours just passed so quickly. I love visiting yarn shops whenever I am in a new city. Thank god for the interwebs!

  41. Happy birthday!

    I think all events should be celebrated with yarn. Which is why for my birthday last month I needed a new set of interchangeables. Then when school was out (I’m a teacher) I took a trip to a yarn store having a sale. We’re heading to visit my parents next week and I’ve already planned a stop at a new-to-me yarn store. And in July we’ll be in Boston so of course I’ll have to check things out there!

  42. Happy birthday! I’ll be 37 in August and I have to admit, you’ve brightened my outlook on it considerably. My yarn/bday story is courtesy of my hubby… Last year my LYS got in some wonderful new merino/tencel yarn the week before my bday. I fell in love with a huge skein during knit night but managed to hold back with the idea that I’d buy it the next week as a present to myself. I told hubby about this wonderful find that night and then tried not to think about it. The middle of the next week, I decided that I couldn’t wait and was going down to get the skein before someone else bought it. Got to the shop and it was gone. I figured karma must’ve had it in for me, so I bought a different color that I also liked, but not as much as the dream skein. The next morning (bday morning), lo and behold, there was the dream skein wrapped up for my birthday. Turns out that hubby had made a mad dash to the store earlier the previous day when he realized that I was planning to go and spent an hour with one of the girls trying to figure out which yarn I’d been ogling… And got it right. I’m still impressed.

  43. I turn 42 today – a number with lots of activity but not terribly interesting.

    I live in Brooklyn and I’ve gone so far as to count any yarn that requires a subway ride to be travel yarn.

  44. Happy almost-birthday! I confess that one of the things I am looking forward to most on my vacation this summer (in addition to seeing family and spending lots of time outdoors) is exploring the yarn shops of Salt Lake City. I am trying not to buy yarn but as others have said that goes right out the window on vacation. I have even been looking at patterns and fantasizing about the yarn I might buy to go with them. Of course it all has to fit in my suitcase…

  45. I purchased some Louet Euroflax linen in a Key West, FL yarn shop a few years ago. I was surprised there was a yarn shop and more surprised they had wool. Ya gotta love knitters! Enjoy number 37.

  46. Happy Birthday – I’m just a little ahead of you and I’m going to turn 40 this Fall (October – awesome knitting month!). To celebrate – we’ve been planning it for years – my mom and I are travelling with my daughters to France this summer!! I will be knitting on that plane, I will knit in Paris, I will knit on the train to where we are staying in the Dordogne region and I will try to find French knitting stores all along the way so that I too can have a travel stash of yarn!

  47. I just celebrated my 1st birthday as a knitter and 54th overall. Traveling by plane has been so much easier. Since I picked up the needles – time for knitting. To celebrate my birthday and upcoming vacation, bought yarn for 2 new projects.

    I’m not ready for sweaters yet but definitely want to take your fitting class when I get to that point. Why invest that time if it’s not going to make me happy to wear it.

    I’d be thrilled with any of these prizes.

  48. Well, happy birthday! As someone on the far side of 40, I can tell you that 37 seems positively spring-chickenish to me 🙂

    I only discovered knitting a few years ago, but it has added so much to my life. Each skein, each pattern, is like this little bit of “it could be so!” I love that undiscovered potential. I’m fortunate that my family indulges my passions. Every birthday and Christmas for the past few years has been filled with gifts of yarn, yarn clubs and pattern books. And now, of course, I don’t even get in the car for a short trip without at least one small project in my bag. Knitting and travel go so perfectly together!

  49. Happy Birthday to you!
    I always have knitting when I travel, and I buy yarn as a souvenir as well. I have a scarf knitted from yarn I bought at Beatrice’s yarn shop on the Arno River in Florence, and a beaded shawl from Jade Sapphire cashmere yarn I got at loop in Philadelphia. My saddest traveling-with-knitting story is that I left my favorite Gaia shoulder hug on a train in Scotland. Every so often I wonder if there is someone out there wearing it and loving it. I hope so!

  50. Happy birthday to you…and me! (my bday is tomorrow).

    Last summer, I went to Transylvania with a friend we have in common. I started to knit a sweater in the bus on my way to the Montreal airport. I kept knitting in the plane, knitted while waiting for next next flight in Switzerland, knitted in Hungary, knitted in the bus on my way to Romania, and kept knitting through my trip, and all the way back. A week later, I went to Vancouver, and was able to knit most of the sleeves while I was there.
    Every time I wear that sweater, I have such nice memories!

  51. I taught English in France for a year, and I seemed to pick up yarn in every city I visited while I was there. Most of it was sock yarn, and I now have a pile of warm woolly socks that remind me of my European adventures when I wear them.

  52. Happy Birthday! I too am turning 37 this year – in a few more weeks, actually. I plan to celebrate my birthday with my favorite knitter/spinner friends at a great little wine and fondue bar – its been tradition for the last few years. There’s always a little knitting and spinning before the wine really kicks in!

  53. Happy irregular prime birthday! Good luck find a card with that on it 😉

    My favorite fiber related trip happens every year at Rhinebeck. My sister and I live 3000 miles apart and we make a point to go to Rhinebeck together for NYS&W every year and have sister bonding time. My sister still goes even though she barely knits anymore. We play and eat and have fun sheepy times.

    Have a lovely TNNA ice cream show!

  54. Well, it was for my 33rd birthday, but my parents got me some gorgeous rose-colored shetland yarn – but not enough for a full sweater. So I made a fair isle sweater and picked out all 7 of the colors in the design and worked away at it until it was done. When I victoriously tried it on, I realized that it was WAY too short for long-waisted me. The options were to leave it alone and never wear it or rip out to the armholes, add more body length and then do the fair isle section all over again. (All this was while I was in law school and had no spare time.) But I decided I wanted to be able to wear it, so I went with option 2 – and 25 years later, I still wear that sweater proudly (and with the greater wisdom of always measuring first.)

  55. A big HAPPY 37th BIRTHDAY to you! I love primes too.

    I am waaaaay past your age and have a quite a yarn stash, but I will never forget my first trip to Santa Fe, about 35 years ago where, as a beginning weaver, I discovered wonderful handspun yarn, couldn’t afford to buy much but still have a special skein of it left.

  56. Happy birthday! And may there be many, many more.

    My own birthday was not too long ago… my celebratory yarn buying bash was a total flop, going to several out of town yarn shops looking for potential sweater yarn and not finding a thing that matched items in my queue. How does that happen?! Maybe I’ll have better belated luck at Black Sheep this weekend. At least the stash size is in a holding pattern… right?

  57. Bought the last four ‘grab bags’ at Edla’s in Walsenburg CO one year on the way to the family cabin. I sorted & matched and had such fun using yarn I’d never have bought since nothing was my ‘usual’ – make a Clapotis, felted some singles wool and generally had a ball (pun?).

  58. My birthday travel is usually down to the LYS, but you have inspired me to think about a trip to Rhinebeck in 2013 (it’s a long way from Texas and will require some saving and budgeting) for my 45th birthday. That sounds like a significant number too. Happy birthday!

  59. Happy Birthday! I love to buy souvenir yarn when traveling and try to plan stops at new yarn stores. The last was purchased at Knitty City in NYC when I was visiting for DD’s graduation from Yale Law School. That DD also took me to Rhinebeck two years ago which was a very big treat for this Montanan because there are only about 10 yarn stores in the whole state!

  60. As I live in a wooly wasteland, I have only been to one real yarn shop. My husband treated me to time at a yarn shop during our much anticipated anniversary trip. The sweet man even said he enjoyed hanging out waiting on me while I was enthralled and entertained.

  61. Happy birthday, Amy! I used to buy books as souvenirs when we traveled (we travel to Europe a lot). But books are very heavy and take up precious luggage space. Much complaining from hubby. Solution: buy yarn! It’s lightweight, easy to pack, and with the help of a wifi connection, a LYS with local indie yarns isn’t that hard to find. Now I have truly unique souvenirs of our travels!

  62. Happy Birthday!!

    A few days before my birthday, my best friend and I went to the Sandhill Crane Winery’s Winter Wool and Wine Festival (January 28th) I saw this hand dyed lace weight merino and silk, I fell in love with it. I must have picked it up at least a dozen times, but I had already spent my yarn allowance.

    On my birthday (February 2nd) my friend and I were going to our stitching group, when we got to the group she hands me a squishy envelope, and says “this is your birthday present”: the yarn. While I was in the restroom before leaving, she had quickly made arrangements to do a mail order purchase (so I would not see it), she expected to get it after my birthday, but when she pulled up to my house to pick me up, her husband met her and handed her the package.

    The yarn Froebe Fibers Mudslide lace weight. My best yarn birthday, 53 is a good year.

  63. Happy birthday!! I hope it’s a really great day for you!

    My very favorite vacation and fiber related memory is of visiting a yarn store while in LA. My lovely wife, who is decidedly much less interested in yarn than I, ran all over that store finding special treasures for me. It was so special to find some special souvenirs and to share that experience with her! 🙂

  64. My favorite knitting trip is the trip to Asheville NC for SAFF, the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair in October. I have every year except 2 in the 15 years and wouldn’t miss it.

  65. My favorite knitting trip is to SAFF every year in Asheville NC. This is the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair and it is so much fun!

  66. Oh, fiber and birthdays. Two years ago, I celebrated my first birthday without my then-husband — a breakup that broke both of our hearts — and I decided I didn’t want to turn 30 alone. I thought, “What will keep me from being sad on this day?” So I went to Falconridge Music festival instead, with a friend who very kindly drove me there, cuddled me, and who enjoyed the music and dancing with. I knit him a pair of socks, begun on the way back from the festival… because, like, what goes together better than knitting and trips? I spent that birthday buoyed up by friendship, fiber and folk song.

    Happy birthday, Amy — I love your designs 🙂

  67. My daughters love to buy me wool or knitting gadgets on my birthday. They are usually more excited than I am about their gifts.

  68. For my most recent birthday (30!), my husband planned a weekend getaway and accompanied me to 3 yarn shops. He’s a great yarn-shopping companion. In each shop, he makes a beeline for the “husband chairs” section, and then amiably agrees that I should purchase whatever yarn I might desire. 🙂

  69. I hesitate to publish this tale, but here goes… when I was 16 (quite a long time ago, in the ’60s) I traveled to London for a summer-school thing (sort of a boondoggle) and during the course of the 6 weeks I acquired some contraband smoking material that I wanted to bring home. Airport security wasn’t anything like it is now, but still… it was a pretty crazy idea. So, I rolled my little stash up in the middle of a big ball of yarn, and breezed through security with a knitted scarf-in-progress. Needless to say, this was one of those stories I never told my parents!

  70. Happy Birthday! 37– it was a good year for me.

    I Love the colors you chose for the yarn selections. I can see them as socks, shawls, hats– warm, wooly, silky wonderfulness.

    Have a great time at TNNA– One of these years I need to figure out a way to get there (maybe schlep yarn for one of my dyer friends?)

  71. I usually get something fiber related for birthdays and holidays since it is “easy” … On my most recent birthday I got yarn bowl and signature needles from my DH … The most touching yarn present was from my sil who spent a lot of time at michaels a couple of years ago picking out yarn for me. I think she was 18 and it was really sweet.

    My favorite travel yarn story is from last year – my DH and his buddies went to Moab to go mountain biking … And he came home with yarn for me. Nice manos del uruguay yarn. He got big points.

  72. My birthday is June 30th-and it usually falls a week after the Black Sheep Gathering which is a fiber arts fair in my home town of Eugene, Or. So I have been celebrating a little early for the last few years and getting a bday gift of a day at the gathering and related fiber purchases. This year’s gathering starts tomorrow and I can’t wait.

  73. PS Happy Birthday!

  74. Happy Birthday to You!
    My son turns 17 tomorrow so you’re in good company.

    I convinced myself to take myself to Rhinebeck the day after my best friend from childhood died in 2010. At first I felt guilty for going, but being among warm and caring knitters and seeing so much beauty in such a great setting did wonders for making me feel better–and close to my dear friend’s spirit.

  75. One of my happiest knitting moments was wrapping a mostly made scarf around my neck while continuing to knit on it. May your birthday feel as adorable as that did!

  76. Whenever family or close friends go adventuring overseas, I research yarn shops they might be close to and send them with a shopping list. (Interesting yarn options that don’t cost the earth are limited in Australia.) When my Husband went to the UK last year, I gave him the task of selecting and buying yarn for me to make Tantallon, a Kate Davies pattern. It required six different colours that would work well together. With a bit of help from the shop assistant, he chose really well and I now have an awesome hat that I wear all the time!

    Happy Birthday, Amy! You’re extraordinarily generous. I hope you have a lovely day.

  77. I’ve enjoyed reading through these stories! I’ve never been to any of the gatherings or festivals… maybe for one of my future birthdays! I’m blessed in that my husband often lets me buy some yarn, picking it out myself, for my own birthday present 🙂 And I also enjoy visiting local yarn shops wherever we happen to travel!

  78. Birthdays and fibre huh. Two birthdays ago my husband completely forgot my birthday and didn’t figure it out until 9 at night. He went to work the next day as usual but cam home after about an hour with flowers and took me off to a woollen mill and bought two sweaters worth of yarn for me. Made up for it in spades.

  79. Best wishes for 37th ! 🙂
    Every time I travel, I look for LYS… just to see what they have, not necessary to buy. It has something local.
    And no fiber festivals here !

  80. Happy Birthday! A fun fibre/birthday fact for you- I’m a Gemini, and my current project on the needles is the Gemini tee from Knitty.

  81. I try to support my LYS by buying there rather than scattering my shopping during my trips. However, my husband brought home some lovely hand spun last year while driving home from a business trip. Though he is a non-fiber person, this spring he insisted I had to see the store on the beautiful Oregon coast and played with their spinning wheels while encouraging me to look at fiber. He got the first sweater I ever made and is now insisting I have to make a sweater for myself!

  82. In January we went for a road trip to Nelson (NZ) and we paid a visit to a couple of craft shops up there. My husband bought me a yarn kit to knit a cardigan for $150NZ, proving that he is well and truly knitworthy. I haven’t started knitting it yet as I’m working through 3 pairs of socks first but I’m really looking forward to it. It’s always nice checking out the local yarn stores.

  83. This year was the first year that I successfully convinced friends and family that although I do have yarn, that doesn’t mean that I have “enough” yarn and wouldn’t want more for my birthday 🙂

    Not only did my excellent Mom visit her LYS for advice on some lovely baby alpaca that came as a complete surprise, but I was treated to a little “pick your own” trip where I decided to try out the brand new (at the time) Malabrigo Arroyo. Wins all around.

  84. Happy early birthday!
    Does the story about how I almost entirely knit my wedding stole while waiting in lines for my foreign passport exchange count as both trip- and fiber-related? If not then there’s another: DH and I were traveling by bus and got stuck on the border (that’ll teach us not to travel by bus before Christmas). I was knitting a cowl for my sister at the time. We were so insanely bored with the waiting that he actually tried and knit several stitches – first ever! – into it although I had to promise not to tell my sister about it 🙂

  85. Happy birthday, Amy!

    Last year, I was able to showoff my yarn skills to my family on a return visit to Australia. I’d brought back items I’d knitted for my brother, nieces and nephews, even managing to finish a simple shawl for my sister-in-law in the six weeks I was back, as well as knitting an alpaca/wool scarf for my mother from yarn and a pattern she picked out herself, and a beanie for my sister from a pattern she selected.

    And in a birthday sidetrip to Auckland, NZ (for my own 37th!), I treated myself to some souvenir Aran Tweed yarn to make my own beanie.

    I had a great time in my 37th year. I hope yours is special, too.

  86. I was taught to knit in Holland, by my Tante Trudy when I was in college. This was in the ’80s, and by the ’90s I’d gotten fed up with the lack of patterns and interesting yarns so I gave it all up since I hadn’t progressed past k, p, yo, increases and decreases. Fast forward to 2004 when my travels on the internet led me to blogs… and blogs about knitting… and the rest is history. Any technique I want to learn about, any yarn I want to sample is now at my fingertips. So my yarn journey has been almost completely virtual as I live in France. My favorite yarn memory is not a birthday one– my first skein of cashmere yarn was a Christmas gift to me from my darling daughter… also courtesy of the Internet!

  87. Hi Amy, Hapy Birthday, 37 isn’t old, believe I’ve been there twice. My fav story of a fibre festival is from Fibre East (UK) last year, the sunday was my 56th birthday and I had a ball, my lovely OH bought me a huge stash of gorgeous fluff n stuff (picperfic to you and me – take a look!) I also bought some fab bobbins for my Majacraft Rose, I have just learnt to spin and have so many full of badly spun rubbish! Just watching the sheep shearing was a joy. My first trip to a proper fibre festival and oh yes! I am definitely going agtain this year. xxx

  88. Happy Birthday!!

    My last birthday I got 3 skeins of Wollmeise from my fiance! Fab birthday present. I hope to get a spinning wheel my next birthday (I turn 30 in january).

    Last holiday I searched google for yarn shops in Hungary, they are all in Budapest and we were on the other side of Hungary. No yarn from that visit. Maybe I can pick some up on my honeymoon (november this year!!). It looks like we are going to Mexico.

  89. For my last birthday my husband drove me to my favourite yarn store and encouraged me to go on a shopping spree! What a guy! Happy birthday…all the best.

  90. Happy Birthday, dear Amy. I enjoy your blog and patterns. Have a wonderful birthday and good luck with that truckload of ice cream.

  91. Happy Birthday! I started knitting again as a grownup five years ago. I also traveled pretty regularly for my job. I can still remember the first work trip where I was able to build in some fiber-related tourism — I went to Loop in Philly and bought some of the softest, prettiest Blue Sky Alpacas yarn ever. Yarn from trips makes me super happy! Hope you have a fabulous birthday week!

  92. Happy Birthday! A few years ago I visited Arizona and the Grand Canyon. One of our stops was Jerome a “ghost town” with a really good bistro plus a delightful knitting shop. I bought their last 3 skeins of Noro Cashmere Island and made a feather and fan scarf which reminds me of the rock strata of the Grand Canyon. Btw, you’re still very young at 37!

  93. Oh wow, how come one of US gets a present, when it’s YOUR birthday! Happy birthday though! (hope someone gets you as nice a present as these yarns are….)
    And for my yarn related sharing – my absolutely favourite is that last birthday my 23-year-old son visited a yarn shop, by himself, with no experience or idea at all of what I like to knit, and bought me a selection of about 6 yarns! At least 3 of which I’ll be VERY happy to knit with (the rest are waiting on inspiration). I was so proud of him for deciding to go well out of his comfort zone, to get me something (possible the ONLY thing) that I’d really love to get for my birthday….he’s a champ, and I was totally taken by suprise.

  94. Happy Birthday! Thank you for such a generous giveaway. Knitters are the nicest people. I’m rather new to knitting therefore I haven’t been to any fiber events yet. I have managed to make sidetrips to yarn shops when I travel. Recently I was in Saint Paul, Minnesota and I stopped in The Yarnery. It’s a nice shop, I picked up their local book Wearwithall and a kit to make Stole. Hopefully I’ll get it on the needles soon.

    Have a happy birthday and enjoy TNNA.

    janmarie-

  95. Have a fantastic birthday. 37 was a wonderful year. I hope you enjoy it and fill up on all that great ice cream and yarny goodness!

  96. Well, I got my first MadTosh for my birthday last year!

  97. happy birthday!
    what a beautiful selection of yarns. to share something birthday or travel related and fiber related….despite my obvious addiction to yarn my hubby is the only who gets it. for my last birthday he made me a gift certificate for a trip to nearby wine country where there’s a little yarn shop i fell in love with our last time up. so he gifted me a trip and yarn! he’s the only person to ever gift me yarn and the poor suffering soul is still waiting for his sweater.

  98. Two years ago, we drove to Ocean City, Maryland and home. I spent most of the trip knitting a Cobblestone for my dad for a Christmas present. (I was feeling organized that year.) While there, I bought some lovely Cascade Heritage Sock Yarn in Cerulean at Salty Yarns on the Boardwalk. This year, we’re going to the Outer Banks, and I hope get as much knitting done and find a nice little yarn store to buy a souvenir!

  99. Happy birthday!!!! I just turned 36 this year and haven’t been taking it well. I hope my 37th finds me in a much better frame of mind just like you.

    For my 34th birthday, I was out and about with my hubby and stopped and a LYS. I bought 6 skeins of yarn and then proceeded to use the winder/swift since I didn’t have one at home and wanted to start the project right away. After sitting through the winding of 4 skeins, my DH picked up a boxed swift that was for sale and marched up to the register and bought it for me. Best. Gift. Ever.

  100. happy birthday!

    my first (and only) rhinebeck was memorable for the lovely new york state alpaca yarn that my boyfriend bought me. i made it into a pair of luxurious bed socks for him which he wore literally to pieces. maybe it’s time to go back this year and get some replacements.

  101. I love to buy yarn on trips!! I recently took a road trip to Bemidji for amazing pasties … and the shop happened to sell indie hand-spun! Sold!! Now I just have to find something to do with a tiny amount of very beautiful yarn ….

  102. I try to buy yarn on any trip. I have some wonderful sock yarn from Phoenix, for example. I’ll always remember that trip when I see that yarn. Now to knit it up . . .

  103. Happy birthday.

    I always pick up textiles/yarns on travels. It is a nice memory of the trip and when I make something, I remember the trip as well.

  104. Happy Happy birthday Amy!!

    I have three firsts that are fiber related, and they all happened in the same year! I totally caught the serious knitting bug in 2011, I had been knitting for a few years but wasn’t totally committed like I am now. Anyway, my LYS had a trip to Maryland Sheep and Wool planned so I decided to go with my fellow yarnies and I had a crazy fantastic time! I fell in love with so many new dyers that I had no clue existed! I probably ovebought but it was so well worth it! Then fast forward a few months and you’ll find me on an island off the coast of Maine with Knitgrrl Shannon Okey and 5 of the most fantastic ladies I’ve ever met for a whole week of knitting goodness. I decided to take a knitting vacation all by myself! Then October was Rhinebeck with my best friend and I still love every minute that I was there and can’t wait to get back this year!

    2011 was big for me for knitting, but 2012 has been just as awesome!

  105. Yarn is an integral part of my life now. My souvenirs are all yarn if I can manage it. My birthdays are celebrated with a sweater’s worth of fancy yarn, or a new fiber tool–loom, spinning wheel, etc.

  106. Happy Birthday! My birthday is today (Friday) – the 5-0, so 37 is a baby to me lol! My last birthday I got gift certs to my LYS & I hoping for the same this year! My favorite prezzies 🙂

  107. I celebrated my birthday this year by treating myself to a weekend on Block Island, RI with my knitting guild friends. We visited North Light Fibers and I purchased three skeins of their gorgeous fingering weight. What’s better than yarn souveniers?

  108. Happy birthday! What a fun idea. I love to buy yarn on trips. When I went to Ireland 2 years ago, I only packed HALF of a suitcase because I knew I’d buy enough yarn to fill the other half. And I did. 🙂

  109. Happy birthday! I had such a great time last year at the Arkansas Fiber Arts Extravaganza in Hot Springs, Arkansas. It was my first fiber trip/festival thing. So. Much. Fun. The marketplace, the classes, the friends! I can’t wait to go back this year!

  110. Happy Birthday!! I turned 37 on the 10th of June. 🙂

    Hmm… so many fiber-related trips since I started knitting!! I think my favorites were the Sock Summits: trips *totally* for myself and such fun! And chock full of fibery goodness. 🙂

  111. My first fiber event was Rhinebeck – I went with my knitting sister and our mom. My daughter was with us and she discovered cashmere…I told her it wasn’t in my budget but she could look at it and pet it as much as she liked. I picked up yarn that trip – I savored knitting it too. Happy birthday!

  112. Happy almost-birthday! My fiber tourism, in combination with my husband’s beer/brewing tourism, results in lots of eye-rolling from the kids about visiting *another* brewery, *another* yarn store, or *another* sheep/alpaca/what-have-you farm. “Mommy, don’t you have enough yarn?” “Daddy, don’t you have enough beer?”

  113. Happy Birthday! I will also be 37 on my next birthday and agree that it’s a cool number. As for knitting and a trip, I’m taking a trip – leaving tonight for a week on the beach and last night I cast on a new project. Just in case the sweater I just started isn’t enough. I just finished a hat and I just had to have at least two options for my travel knitting. We’ll see if I get anything done at the beach with seven nieces and nephews who all want to help me “sew” my project.

  114. Happy Birthday, Amy! I remember 37 well, as distant as it now seems to me (at almost 50…!). My sister and I had a lovely birthday/yarn excursion about 13 years ago now, when we visited the Isle of Skye, off the Scottish coast. There we met Di Gilpin, as she was based there then, and we each purchased a sweater’s worth of beautiful yarn and handmade buttons. A memorable trip.

  115. Happy birthday!!! My favorite fiber-related travel was to attend Yarn School a couple years ago now. Prepping and dyeing and spinning, what fun!

  116. Happy birthday! I just left 37 myself. We have been having a fiber weekend for my birthday the past few years. The Pawtucket Stitch & Pitch is usually the day after the Coggesshall fiber festival, both down in RI. Sadly, this year the S&P didn’t happen and we had family in town the day of the fiber festival so I didn’t get to do that but I made up for it with my first trip to Webs!

  117. My one and only fiber-related trip was two years ago when we went to Nebraska for Labor Day. I got to visit the Brown Sheep company and go through their little shop of discounted yarns, mill ends, etc. what fun!

  118. Happy Birthday! I have an awesome husband who on my 48th birthday totally suprised me with a wool girl sock club kit ( the one about Tea) and signed me up for the rest of the year!!

  119. Happy Birthday Amy! Reading your blog, 37 is a great number! 🙂 For my birthday this past May I received what I like to call “Knitters Gold.” Aka – a gift certificate to my LYS – The Creative Stitch. I took a trip down to the shop, barely able to contain my glee, and flashed my Certificate to the shop owner (Kristen). She was more than happy to show me her brandy new stock of Jade Sapphire. I touched it and it was all over… delicious silk and cashmere in a lovely blend of soft lavenders. It had to be MINE. I could barely get myself to hand it back for her to ring it up for me. *sigh* It shall be a lovely lacy scarf/shawl and… I will giggle every time I wear it. That’s what a silk cashmere blend does to me… it makes me giggle uncontrollably.

  120. Happy Birthday you young thing! Hope you have a wonderful time celebrating! Traveling up to Portland , Maine to take your Fit to Flatter class was fun as has been bumping into you at various fiber festivals. You rock! DH mentioned seeing you at the caf at work last week.

  121. Happy Birthday! On my birthday last year my husband and I took a short trip to celebrate. We found a small yarn shop in town and they had the most lovely hand-dyed yarn. I bought two colorways. As soon as we got back home I started knitting a shawl with it. While knitting all I could think about was the fun time we had on that trip. I’m looking forward to remembering it all again when I knit with the other colorway.

  122. happiest birthday wishes!! (“try not to s___ any d___ on the way to the parking lot!”- sorry, but you brought it up). 🙂 i hope you have a great day!

    as for my fiber-related birthday: 2 years ago my mother bought me a fair isle class with mary jane mucklestone and it was awesome! i really learned a lot.

  123. Happy Birthday!
    My first fiber festival was at Estes Park – a road trip with a bunch of friends. That was in 2007, and I just finished knitting a project with some of the yarn I bought there. There’s still more in my stash. Ahem.

  124. I can’t connect a birthday or a trip with fibre except that I probably am knitting on my birthday and on all my trips. I’m addicted and I have knit several of your designs. I’m working on Petria right now. Your designs suit me and they are easy to follow. So Happy Birthday to you and Good luck to me.

  125. You are so generous to share so many personal firsts with us! I try to mark all of my special trips with a yarn souvenier. It makes the knitting so much more enjoyable. Good for you for having such a positive attitude about birthday! Getting older always bugged me because by the time I started feeling comfortable about my age, it was time to turn another year older. I turned 39 earlier this month and luckily that feeling has lessened with each passing year. Happy birthday and here’s to another wonderful year!

  126. For my most recent birthday, among my presents from my husband were some WEBS gift cards and “coupons” for two trips to WEBS, chauffeured by him! 😀

  127. Happy Birthday! My sweet sister gave me some really nice yarn for my birthday a few years ago which was awesome! I hope she does it again some day 🙂 Also, I got married 4 months ago (for the first time – I’m in my early 40s) so now I can knit on car trips!!! We went to visit my FIL last weekend and I got so much done 🙂

  128. When my son was a baby (7 or 8 weeks!) we traveled east to my hometown of New York for a reunion upstate. While we were in Manhattan, the temperature was around 113 and the humidity was however high it can get without actually being rain. It was miserable! And there was my sweet little boy in a sling on my husband’s chest. We ducked into Purl (back when it was on Sullivan and Purl Patchwork was down the block) and I forgot about the heat for a glorious five minutes of color and texture. I remember I looked at a skein of silk yarn that was $35 for about as many yards, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. (I didn’t buy it.) Then we ventured back into the impossible mugginess and ran three blocks to our friends’ apartment, where we held the baby in front of the tiny window AC to cool him off.

  129. I bought my very first souvenir yarn in Cork, during the tour through Ireland I took with my boyfriend three years ago. That was also the very first time I bought handpainted yarn – and I love the socks it became. Their variegated greens always remind me of Ireland.

    And then, the very first time somebody gave me yarn as a present was last Christmas, when my little sister of 9 years presented me with handpainted sock yarn in a green-yellow-orangey colourway. I know, that’s not really birthday-related, but I had to share it. To me, it was so cute that this little girl told me “I thought these were exactly your colours” – honestly, that was the best present I got this year!

    By the way, I am in love with every single yarn you presented – these are exactly my colours, too – but it was the Plucky Knitter and Fiesta La Luz that had me gaping. Which actually should not be that surprising because even though I don’t have red hair, I’m the same colour type as you.

  130. Happy Birthday. I just celebrated 34. A fiber related comment…
    I’d really like to be able to just buy beautiful yarn that I come across and not always having the pattern first and then getting too much yarn and having to find a project after. Maybe winning this contest will start the ball rolling.

  131. Happy Birthday! We are going on vacation in August and I am already plotting what project I am going to bring (a pair of socks for my mom) AND what yarn I’ll be bringing back from vacation!

  132. Happy birthday! I had a birthday on the 20th (but sadly, not 37….more like 40) but I’ll be at TNNA one day hopefully (how can I not go when it is only a little over an hour from us). As for yarn and birthdays, I’ve told hubby I want a cabinet/hutch to house all my yarn in….he thinks its going to take one HUGE armoire……..

  133. Happy birthday to you!!!! I haven’t had any fibery birthdays (aside from ordering yarn as my present), but I often think fondly back to my first (and, so far, only) Rhinebeck back in 2009. It was my first (and, hmm, still, only) fiber fest, and it was chilly and perfect and awesome and I can’t wait to repeat the experience. I also still haven’t knit most of the yarns I bought that day… Hmm… 🙂

  134. Happy Birthday! My fiber related stories seem to all be about small town Michigan (my home state). When I was in Michigan visiting my mom, we made a special trek out to a small town so that I could buy recycled plastic bottle fiber for spinning. The store was basically on the porch of the owner’s house and was supposed to be open, but when we got there no one was there. We managed to get ahold of someone and buy the fiber (which I have not spun yet)…but the best part was that my dad was so interested in the fiber and the fact that bottles could be recycled to make yarn.

  135. Happy Birthday!

    My own slowly approaches in August, and this past March I went to London for the second time, and went prepared with a list of yarn shops to visit. After a stop in just 1 I pretended there was no list, I left with yarn, needles, buttons, and a mental wince at the exchange rate. But I had wollmeise and things from a yarn store and every time I pick one of the skeins up I think of the trip and grin.

  136. I was so glad to read your post because I will be turning 37 later this year. To celebrate that, I was really thinking about attending my first fiber festival, which occurs about the same time in a town not too far from where I live. This might be an exciting birthday for me, too! Happy birthday!!!

  137. Happy birthday, Amy!

    Last Christmas, as usual, my husband and I made the rounds of our families on the east coast. We’ve been married for 2 and a half years, so his mother and I are still working very hard at finding our footing (she’s lovely, we’re just very different people). This sometimes makes holidays a source of, oh, let’s say stress. This year, however, I’d taken her yarn shopping over Thanksgiving and she’d picked up some wonderful purple Malabrigo to make her first sweater. Over our trip east, I helped her make a gauge swatch (which she enjoyed immensely–she’s thinking she’ll make a bunch and use them as little coasters), cast on, decipher the pattern, and get the hang of 2×2 rib. It gave us something to talk about, and that certainly made the trip a little easier.

  138. I just celebrated my 30th birthday yesterday, and had to work, so the celebrations are on hold until this weekend, where we will see Brave and eat delicious rice pudding. Yarn will probably also be purchased so that I can make argyle socks for the first time for a lovely friend who needs some cheering up. I look forward to some fiber-related birthdays in the future when my finances can catch up to it!

  139. On a recent trip to Florida, a friend and I went to explore the local yarn stores. Our other friends(non-knitters) said that we went “yarning”.
    I thought that was a cute description of yarn shopping 🙂

    Hope you had a fabulous birthday!!!

  140. Happy birthday! 37 does sound like a very special birthday – I hope you enjoy every moment of it (I know I will in couple months!)
    Since my quality knitting time is pretty much only during long trips, I have several very international projects. My favorite intercontinetal project: yarn produced and purchased in Russia, pattern is from German knitting magazine Verena, knit during my trip to Oxford, UK for a girl who lives in US.

  141. Happy Birthday! My last birthday was a trip to Bainbridge Island where they have a yarn store and a distillery. Though the distillery was closed (always call ahead, the website is lies!), the yarn store was lovely as always and I bought some purple Malabrigo Rios that I used to make your pinstripe sweater. Though the yarn is all lovely, I hope it’s not too fawning to want to win copies of your patterns instead.

  142. Happy Birthday! Wonderful giveaway.

    Before traveling I research the local yarn stores in that city. I have stories and yarn to go along with them all. One of my favorites was getting lost somewhere in Florida with my sister looking for a yarn store. It’s always a good time!

  143. I have only traveled for yarn once so far – to the first Sock Summit. It was awesome. But more exciting even than that, is next January. January 2013 I will be flying to Wisconsin to go to a retreat with my Rav knitting friends!!! That is going to be good yarny travels.

  144. Er…and Happy Birthday. I forgot to add that to the previous post.

    I too turn 37 in August and I am excited to have a reason to like the year, although the wiki on irregular primes was a wee bit above my head.

  145. Happy Birthday!
    I often treat myself to some yarn for my birthday, especially something fancy. But my favourite self-present was for my 25th birthday, when I made myself a cabled jumper! I spent the couple of days before knitting and weaving ends like mad, so that I could finish it on my birthday eve. And when I woke up on my birthday, there it was, cabled and glorious, ready to be worn in the cold of February.

  146. Wow, Happy Birthday! I agree 37 is a great number, that’s when I had my first daughter, almost seven years ago.

    This past birthday, I received a gift for Knit Picks, it was the first fiber related gift I’ve ever received and it felt really good. Of course I spent it right away. It came from my sister who just recently started knitting, so the best gift is that I now have a sister I can knit with.

  147. I normally hit yarn stores on any trips..sometimes to buy, sometimes to nose. Last time I was in Charleston, SC I hit Knit (lovely store…lovelier employees!) and bought my first skein of Sweet Georgia yarn. Thought it was so funny, being so close to GA, with Georgia in the name and buying yarn from Canada 🙂

  148. Happy birthday Amy! On my last birthday, my boyfriend found out he’d gotten the job he was up for, so he bought me two skeins of tosh merino dk in celebration! I ended up knitting him a scarf with it. So generous of me 😉

  149. I believe it was at your first Rhinebeck that we met!!

    I love fiber-related travel and have done some traveling to meet and knit with fiber & blog friends — to MN, NY, NJ, IL, CA, and UT.

    Happiest of birthdays to you, Amy!

  150. Happy birthday, Amy! I barely even remember 37… though it was really not very long ago.

    Hmm, fiber related about a birthday or a trip. Well, how about a general statement about all trips: I always take WAY too much knitting, which I think shows that I’m an optimist and expect to knit a lot on my trips! Alas, I rarely get to.

  151. Happy birthday!
    I would treat you to a ice cream if I were there–as it is I will have to just dream about it. and even if I could be there I couldn’t have ice cream any ways because my husband and I gave up processed sugar; ( but thats ok cause I don’t have to eliminate yarn. and the yarns you show on your blog are so yummy!
    this year my goal is to go to Jefferson , WI for the sheep and wool festival. it is only about 20 miles from here but I have never gone. but this year I gave my daughter a spinning wheel for her birthday and she is going to teach me how to spin. By the way my daughter is 37 also. This will be my very first yarn festival and I am looking forward to it.

  152. Hi Amy….Happy birthday…looking forward to the release of your new patterns. I enjoy seeking out new yarn stores when on a trip. I always buy something beautiful. But I also always take along a simple knitting project for those down times.

  153. I moved to OH when I was 37, in 1988. My first fiber fest was The Great Lakes Fiber Fest in Wooster. I still have the gorgeous skein of hand dyed yellow and orange mixed fibers waiting to be made into something fabulous. have a wonderful birthday in Columbus, where I live now- Be sure to go to Pasticia Vera in German Village for a birthday treat their Chocolate Bomb is sooooo yummmmmmy.

  154. My husband gave me the Peace Fleece kit “marta’s favorite sweater” for my bithday about 15 years ago. It is all knitted but I’ve never sewn it together! Much too intimidating! lol I think it is time to take it to my lys and ask for help, eh? It’s a beautiful sweater. Too pretty to wear! I keep thinking I should hang it on the wall and build a frame around it!

    Thanks for the chance to enter your giveaway! I hope you have a wonderful birthday!

  155. Happy birthday to you!

    For some reason, the people that love me refuse to give me yarn-related gifts on my birthday, so I usually end up buying myself yarn at different times during the year when I feel I deserve it. I usually feel like this on a bad day, after an exam, or whenever I need a little bit of comfort. There’s something soothing about going to a LYS and petting soft fibers. Sometimes things follow me home, and then I’m extra soothed 😉

  156. My favorite birthday trip was a gift to myself. I was in Los Angeles (a trip home to see my family) and stopped in at a local yarn store where they hadn’t seen me in probably 3 years.

    The owner greeted me by name and not only remembered that my birthday was in a few days, but gave me a 15% discount off everything I bought that day to celebrate. (I bought extra to make up for it 🙂

    It was a great trip–lovely woman, lovely shop, lovely family visit!

  157. Happy Birthday Amy! What a great prize pack you put together for us!

    Since my birthday is in the summer too (July) and since I study Asia for a living, I’m often traveling far away from my home in the U.S. on my birthday. When I turn 35 next month I’ll be in Bangkok, which should be exciting, but my all time favorite birthday in Asia was spent sari shopping in India.

    I hope you have a great day and that 37 ends up being an excellent year for you. 🙂

  158. Happy Birthday Amy! I always try to get souvenier yarn or fiber anytime I travel. We are planning a trip to Colonial Williamsburg for our 20th wedding anniversary and I will be mapping out the yarn stops on the way there and on the way back.

  159. Happy birthday! I love my birthdays, too. One of my favorite birthdays was in brazil, visiting my friend’s family and pretending to speak portuguese. It was quite a day, but involved absurd amounts of food, cachaca (sort of the brazilian equivalent of tequila) and lots of laughing and goofing around with her family. It was a bunch of years ago now, but I always think of it with a smile!

  160. Happy Birthday Amy! I will tell you a yarny story about a birth day. When my daughter announced that she was pregnant, i started knitting the sock yarn blanket out of all hand dyed sock yarns for our first grandchild. Then my daughter-in-law announced she was pregnant and had the same due date. My friends insisted that i had to knit a second wondrous sock yarn blankie. And i got to give them to my first two grandsons who were born on the same day which was also my son’s birthday!! And the bits of yarns came from a lot of trips and fiber fests….and a lot of other knitters’ trips, too!

  161. I love to take trips (aka Adventures) with my friend Kelly. We visit local yarn stores. When I was going through my stash last week, I had a great time remembering how much I laughed on the quest that landed different skeins of yarn. I need an Adventure soon…

    happy birthday!

  162. Happy Birthday! We vacation in SC for my birthdays and I always get to visit the LYS for souvenir/birthday yarn. I found a pretty dusty rose linen on the last trip. Enjoy 37!

  163. Enjoy your birthday. Thank you for the great giveaway. I have fond memories of my trip to This is Knit in Dublin, Ireland. I bought two beautiful skeins of Gaiety Girl, a local yarn company. The women at This is Knit were so friendly. I hope I have the opportunity to return to that lovely store.

  164. Happy birthday! And thanks so much for the giveaway!

    Let’s see, something fiber-related about a birthday or a trip. . . Well, last year was my first time at Rhinebeck (or any fiber festival, for that matter). I was afraid I might not be able to make it, but fortunately I recovered from abdominal surgery in time to take the trip with my bff.

    What a wonderful gift that was, especially coming out of a long illness. Upstate New York is gorgeous in the fall, and to experience the abundance of riches that is Rhinebeck was a joy. I only wish I’d been able to splurge on yarn as much as I wanted to — but I had an amazing time nonetheless. Can’t wait to go back.

  165. I finally made it to my first wool festival a few weeks ago. It was in Leipzig, Germany, a few hours by train from where I live in Berlin. It was fairly small, but I was able to see all of DyeforWool’s colorways and bases in person and come upon handgefaerbt.com’s wildly vibrant yarn. And Leipzig itself was fabulous. (The only place I’ve been so far where the biggest tourist restaurant actually satisfied.)
    However, the best part was seeing the looks on everyone’s faces when I answered why I’d gone to Leipzig for the day. It seems Wollfest is not an expected answer!

  166. Wow! Lots of posts all of a sudden! 🙂 I haven’t done many knitting travels, but for my last birthday I got lots of lovely wool from friends! I’m planning a pair of bright stripy socks with some and haven’t decided on the the rest yet but I’m enjoying hunting for patterns that I could use…and adding lots more to my list of things to knit…

    Happy Birthday Amy! Have a great one! x

  167. Happy birthday, Amy! For some reason, when I start to think about birthday presents for anyone, I always consider a knitted gift first.

  168. Happy birthday, Amy! How fabulous to see another person “playing with numbers” as I do. 37 was a grand year – – – I’m looking forward to my year of “finding balance – ying/yang” (69)in a few years. I teach in the Middle East and love to travel, anywhere and every place, always knitting along the way. My preference for knitting projects is socks – quick, portable, and almost instant gratification. I give most of my socks away and have given many, many pairs to flight attendants who have stopped to reminice about their mothers and/or grandmothers who knit. If the socks end up as a gift for someone, not on a trip, then the socks are always accompanied by a story of where the socks were knit and/or where in the world the yarn was found and purchased. Salam wa sa’aadah
    PS I also really love patterns and colorways that evoke memories of places to visit.

  169. Happy Birthday! How nice of you to share yarn with all of us on your birthday. I usually get yarn from my daughter on my birthday. One year when she was about 4-yrs-old she bought me the most obnoxious orange Koigu ever produced! I could totally see the appeal to a 4-yr-old. After many years in stash, they are currently being made into socks I like to call “only a mother could love.”:-)

  170. Amy, Happy Birthday to you!! I just ventured on my first yarn crawl this past April with some great friends and had a ball visiting stores I had never been to and buying yarn along the way! Now for the knitting fun!

  171. Happy Birthday! Thanks for sharing. I work part time and we have an office tradition where the office manager buys a cake for each employee’s birthday to share with the office. Since I don’t work every day, last year my birthday fell on my day off so it slipped by without notice. About a week later I found a card on my desk from the office manager apologizing for forgetting my birthday and including a generous gift certificate to the local yarn shop (which I visit often on my lunch break as it’s only a block from the office.)I subsequently bought some wonderful dark red cashmere yarn and made her a lovely ruffled scarf which I gave her for Christmas. Fun for both of us!

  172. Penblwydd Hapus! Joyeux Anniversaire!
    My birthday was on the 8th and my Mum gave me 30 euros to spend so I went to a localish yarn shop to spend it. Somehow the wool fumes got to me and I ended spending about 100 euros instead 🙂

  173. A story about fiber a birthday and a trip all in one:
    A few years ago, my husband (then boyfriend) had to miss my birthday while on a business trip to nashville. When he came home he brought an entire canvas shipping bag full of alpaca yarns with him. That’s how a knitter knows that a fellow is a keeper.

  174. Happy Birthday, Amy! One year a friend and I took a driving trip, working our way around the shores of Lake Michigan. In ezch place we stopped that had an LYS, we visited and I bought a skein of sock yarn. Now whenever I pill on the socks knit from that trip I have fond memories.

  175. Happy birthday!
    After a failed marriage I felt so traumatized that I thought I could never ever fall in love again and start a relationship with someone else.
    Then I met a really nice guy. I was very reluctant to get involved, but when my birthday came and he just brought me the most beautiful yarn I’ ve ever seen, I just knew he was the right guy for me. After several years he still is.

  176. Happy Birthday! On my last birthday my folks surprised me with a trip to the knitting shop, and hopefully I’ll be wearing a finished February Fitted Pullover by the time my next birthday rolls around =)

  177. Happy birthday! Thanks for the giveaway!
    My most memorable fiber trip is to Tokyo, Japan. I went a little crazy at yuzawaya. Bought tons of yarns until the cashier gave me crazy lady look. I didn’t knit with it since those yarns are my special yarns 🙂

  178. When we went to the Outer Banks, my husband let me visit Knitting Addiction. Of course he came with me into the store and sat down while I looked around. Later he said, “Nice store.” I bought him some sock yarn for that!

  179. When my daughter was six, she decided she wanted to give me yarn for my birthday. She asked her dad to take her to the local yarn shop and they picked out several skeins of sock yarn. It was the first time anyone had given me yarn as a gift. She did the same thing last year when she was seven. I am working on teaching her to knit so that one day I can return the favor in kind. 🙂

  180. Happy Birthday! One of my favorite gifts to give and receive is a gift certificate to a LYS. What’s more fun than picking out “free” yarn. Thanks!

  181. Happy Birthday, Amy!
    The first garment that I ever knit and felt was good enough to give as a gift was a Lopi three-quarter length jacket for one of my nieces who was heading off to college. She still wears it seven years later, and tells me she loves when someone compliments her, and when they ask where they can get one she says ‘you can’t…it’s one of a kind made for me by my Auntie for my birthday’. Whenever she tells that story my heart bursts.

  182. I went to the first Sock Summit in 2009. It’s the only large knitting gathering I’ve ever been to, and it was so much fun. I was knitting Multnomah at the time, with no idea that it would become a pattern, it was just a fun project.

    Happy birthday, Amy. I hope this coming year is your absolute best.

  183. happy birthday!!! thank you for such a generous giveaway – on my last birthday my boyfriend bought me beautiful wool that i knit into a vest and just looooove! but not as much as i love him for that thoughtful present. hope you have a good one!

  184. A few years ago, my husband and I spent a week in Vermont, in September, for our 25th Anniversary. I had just learned to knit a few weeks before and took my knitting along, however, being new to the sport, I ran into some muddles. An employee of the hotel not only restored order…she used her afternoon off to take me to a couple of yarn stores! Knitting instantly became my social network!

    Happy birthday to you…it has been a pleasure watching your designs and learning from you!

  185. I like collecting yarn on my travels. I get the pleasure of buying it, knitting it, and wearing it and it brings back memories of the trip on which I got it!

  186. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! – I always check out all the yarn stores in the area I am travelling to online first. Buy lots of yarn, and make something significant with it which always reminds me of the good times on that trip.

  187. Happy Birthday!! I am still fairly new to knitting and really haven’t traveled much since starting. I did travel a few short miles to DFW Fiber Fest this year. First time attending and loved it – came home with more yarn than I planned, but that’s what you are supposed to do, right? 🙂

  188. My last birthday was my 27th birthday and to celebrate made my first large purchase from my lys. I bought 2 skeins of miss babs yowza in the plum colorway and made an effortless cardigan. It is my favorite sweater to date!!!! Wishing you a happy birthday with lots of jenis ice cream! Thank you for the giveaway!

  189. Happy Birthday:)

    Best travelling yarn memory – my then 6yr old daughter screaming ‘stop the car!’ as we drove through Scotland, she’d spied a yarn store through the car window. Brilliant, wow did that wee girl get a huge hug from her Mum.

    Yarn is the best way to relive a holiday. Always cast on a holiday knit, & always buy some yarn on holiday…can way I score a double win:)

  190. Happy 37th Birthday Amy! I agree 37 is a great number The reason that I agree, it was on my 37t birthday that I purchase my skein of Indie yarn.

    Sending you much love, Anna

  191. Two years ago, I went on vacation to London with my boyfriend. We arrived insanely early in the morning, too early to even check in to the hotel. He asked what I wanted to do while we waited, and I replied sheepishly, “Um, there’s this little knitting event that I’d like to go to, if you don’t mind…” and that was how we ended up together at Knit Nation (the first one!), and he spent about an hour in front of the wall of wollmeise in the market, choosing colors for himself. 😀

  192. my birthday yarn story: my husband took my young son to get me a present. Little dude thought up yarn all on his own. They went to Michael’s and he spent ages choosing the two most awesome colors of Red Heart Super Saver. (Red and turquoise, which is a combo I do love.)

    The yarn is scratchy as hell and I’m going to have to go buy about ten more skeins to make a blanket out of it, and it will take years for me to finish, but it’s my favorite gift ever. Every time I pick it up, the boy beams a little bit.

  193. How nice! Spending your birthday at TNNA. It’s the perfect rationale for buying fiber! I don’t get to travel much, but I do try to get local yarn or fiber when I go to festivals. One of my favorites is from Good Karma Farms in Belfast, ME. So squishy!

  194. Happy birthday! So… I traveled two hours to New York on business on two consecutive weeks. On the first I got some yarn at one of those yummy stores they have over there… and then changed my mind about the color, so I went back the next week JUST to exchange that yarn. Somehow 6 other skeins came home with me. Maybe I should just have kept the original one…!

  195. Happy Birthday, 37 is a wonderful number. When my husband and I travel we always stop at yarn shops. Years ago he was hesitant to do this, but over time he learned that the knitters always knew the best dining and drinking establishments in their towns. Now he checks out where the shops are before I do.

  196. Dear Amy,
    First of all, thank you for the time and energy you expend for us all to learn so much about fitting our knits. It has transformed my choice of patterns!
    My yarn story on a trip is as follows:
    My eldest daughter and I visited Sanibel Island, Florida last August for a getaway before the start of college. I brought a non-fitted item to knit on…the Clapotis shawl, using Noro’s Silk Garden. I blissfully knit every night on the balcony, listening to the surf and enjoying her company.Every morning we would head out to the beach, pool or bike on the island. I would leave my knitting hanging on the little club chair in the room so it wouldn’t get crumbled. Every day we would come back to the room after housekeeping would be in and the Clapotis would be in a different spot on the chair! We giggled about it every day. On our last day there, there was a little note on the chair saying, “Love your knitting, keep up the lovely work!” Appreciative knitters are everywhere! We left a great tip, on the chair!

  197. Happy birthday! This year my cousin turned forty, and I’m trying to make mittens for her despite a lack of specific measurements. (She knows about the gift but hasn’t been able to send me numbers.) So far I have knitted and frogged two half-mittens, changed patterns, and knitted another mitten minus a thumb; in a week we’ll find out whether this pair will go to her or stay with me, since my hands are slightly narrower. Learning a lot, at least!

  198. Happy 37th birthday! What a fun idea for a birthday giveaway! Hmmm…on several occasions, my brother has gotten me yarn as a gift. I’m not sure which ones coincide on birthdays and which on Xmas, but I think those skeins are super special. He has good taste in color and lets the ladies at yarn shops point him in the direction of quality and yardage…always beautiful gifts!

  199. Oh, my goodness! Happy birthday! I love fiber related travel. A few years ago my husband, my brother and his wife, and I travelled from Cincinnati, OH to Maryland Sheep and Wool. We had such a blast and got to see so many amazing fibers up close and personal. The most fun for me, though, was meeting some of my online fiber friends in person.

    Enjoy your birthday and Jeni’s!

  200. Hmmm….something fiber-related about a trip must be about a trip my parents took earlier this year to Nepal. There they bought me a ball of yarn that was hand-spun by a local woman, of whom they also took a picture and video of the process. One of my favorite ‘souvenir’ gifts ever!

  201. Happy B-Day! I have to admit, I didn’t know about regular and irregular primes…. As someone who does staycations (even before they became trendy), day trips to various New England LYSs have been my vacays for years….adding a side trip to a LICS (local ice cream store) – what could be better?

  202. Happy Bday, Amy! My first fiber fest was last year’s Fiber in the Boro in Murfreesboro, TN. The funny thing is, everytime I told one of my friends I was going to be attending a fiber festival, they thought I was talking about the fiber you eat and kept asking me if I had bowel problems. I think this was very funny, and I was glad to see that the Fiber in the Boro had nothing to do with that type of fiber!

  203. Happy Birthday! I always pick up souvenir yarn on my travels, and I’ve knit with most of it too! I’m currently finishing a sweater I started in 2007 with linen from La Droguerie in Lyon. Just one more button band to go…

  204. Happy Birthday, Amy! I hope it’s a fabulous one. I love that you remember all of your yarn based on trips or special events. I love looking through my stash for those very reasons.

  205. Happy Birthday from another June baby! I celebrated 50 this year by going to the Maine Fiber Frolic with a fibery friend whose birthday is also in June (and the day before mine). BTW I just knit Petrea; the fitted shape is new to me and I am very happy with it. Hard to decide which of your designs should be next on my list. Hope your birthday is a happy one.

  206. Happy Birthday!!! And thanks for the awesome giveaway. For several years now yarn shops have figured big into my vacation planning. Last year I went to San Francisco and was really excited that I could walk to ArtFibers from our hotel. It’s a great place, both because of the yarn and the incredibly nice owner. I love that they have swatches of everything, you can make a swatch of anything you’d like and they cut the length of fiber that you need. I bought a couple of silk/ alpaca blends and I can’t believe I haven’t knit them up yet. But, what great memories when I do!

  207. My first Sock Summit was #2, and I bought a ridiculous amount of yarn. Even worse, I don’t think I’ve knit any of it yet. I’ll go sit in the shame corner now

  208. I went to the Kentucky Fiber Frolic last February with two good fiber friends. (Lots of “F’s” in that sentence!) We had a blast!!! We fantasized about going to Dinosaur World–maybe next time we’ll go, had a fabulous time in a dollar store, learned to warp a rigid heddle loom, met wonderful fiber people including Abby Franquemont. It was so much fun.

  209. Thanks for giving out presents on your birthday! I haven’t done much traveling for fiber events, what with having a small child and a small budget ; ). But I do try to stop at a LYS when we’re traveling to visit family or on vacation and buy at least one small special skein. It’s fun then later to open a drawer and see my ‘Duluth socks’ or my ‘Chicago scarf’.

  210. No birthday/knitting occurences that I remember. However, my daughter gave me a lovely skein of yarn from Montana for Xmas. I only have been to one fiber festival – last year with a friend and I went to Estes Park. It was lovely. We took two days of classes with Galina and just enjoyed everything about our mini get away.
    Happy 37th birthday!

  211. Happy birthday, Amy! 37 is indeed a cool number–wishing you a wonderful year. How could it be anything else when it begins with Jeni’s ice cream? I’ve never had the pleasure of trying the famed dessert, but maybe one day…

    My favourite travel related yarn story is my trip to Wollmeise. In December of 2010, my best friend and I travelled to Germany so that she could have a medical treatment performed which is not available in Canada. We were there for three weeks. The thought of being in Germany and not going to Wollmeise seemed unthinkable (to me–she wasn’t a knitter), so we got on the train and made the pilgrimage to Wollmeise. You know you have a wonderful friend when she will trek with you through the snow to a yarn shop you want to visit! Wollmeise was like heaven–the colours were spectacular. WAY too much yarn followed me home. Well, to be honest, I shipped it home so that I didn’t have to lug it all in my suitcase for the rest of the trip. It was worth the 42 euros shipping.

    Thanks for being so generous as to be giving gifts away for your birthday.

  212. I always find souvenir yarn when traveling, whether the trip is for work or play! The only problem is that I sometimes then treasure those skeins so much that I never knit them up!

  213. The happiest of birthdays to you. Just got back from a trip to Slovenia! They have a great lace making tradition but, alas, no yarns shops of which to speak…

  214. Happy Birthday! I live in PDX so my first Sock Summit yarn was just a bus ride away. I do have my mother’s beaded necklace that is a beaded doll on the end of the beaded neck piece that we got at the Luray Caverns when my sister and I were little (we both got beaded rings, which my sister left on the sink of a restroom during the same trip and she’s never forgotten–and it doesn’t matter that it would barely fit on her little finger now. I know, I still have mine. Not sure what it says about my hand washing at that age or lack of faith in myself to remember).

  215. I just stumbled across an adorable little knitting, music and cafe shop on the way to Bon Echo – it’s just south of the Ontario park where people go camping. The owners are a retired couple from the area – the husband taking care of the music (many instruments), and the wife taking care of the yarn section. It was a fun little find and I picked myself up some Noro Kirameki.

  216. Many Many Happy returns of the DAY!!! I found this post really entertaining because of THE number and the facts you provided, and because of a really interesting way to celebrate it!!:)

    Most of the yarn I buy is via websites. However, if you stretch a ‘trip’ further, here’s one I remember. A friend of mine wanted me to make her a hat (head warmer??:P) for her birthday, something pretty, that I failed to deliver. And then finally I surprised her once with the new FO whe she was about to leave for London – where it could be windy – so PERFECT! And then I came to know that it actually got stolen within 2 days, and she never found how and when 🙁 Now I can atleast laugh off this incident 🙂

  217. Almost every trip is fibre related. From Hawaii to Florida to B.C. to P.E.I. To China and Spain I’ve bought yarn or fabric

  218. Happy birthday Amy!
    A few years ago when I had weekend use of a mini-van thanks to my work vanpool, my knitting friends and I would load up the van and go on journeys to various parts of the San Francisco Bay Area for some yarn shopping. I didn’t always buy yarn but the companionship, gossip and the food are some of my best travel memories.

  219. 1. Happy birthday!
    2. Hope you are enjoying a serious array of Jeni’s.
    3. Unfortunately, most of my trip-related fiber memories involve frogging something I wasn’t paying enough attention to. I have many plans, but poor execution and sketchy attention. But I persist.

    Thanks for the chance.

  220. Happy Birthday, Amy! I too am 37 and loved all your reasons for loving the age. Though relatively new to knitting, my stash wouldn’t look it. My first real stash enhancing trip was Sock Summit 2011 and I did quite a bit of damage, if I do say. That trip was also where I was able, quite fortuitously, to attend your Fit to Flatter class. Your class changed my mind about so any things, but the biggest… I know longer feel that I need to get smaller before I knit myself something pretty. Thank you!

  221. Happy birthday!

    Where to begin with the travel related yarn stories? I always try to go to yarnstores on trips, but finding them without addresses and/or maps can be quite challanging. I also love wearing the finished item knit with yarn bought on trips, because it always reminds you of where you got it.
    My best memeries of yarn and crafting while on holiday has to be my newyears trip to Scotland. It seemed that everywhere I went I connected with somebody on a crafty level. I even got a big outdoorsy bloke knitting a hat! It was brilliant 🙂

  222. I don’t travel very frequently but when I do I usually research where to find the local yarn shops. For some reason I never get to them. Usually it is because other people are not willing to go off the beaten path (husband), have other things they want to do (son), or need to me to do things that take up time when I could be checking out a yarn shop (daughter)then they are closed by the time I am free. Some day I will do a yarn tour.

  223. Last year for my birthday, my family gave me a beautiful free-standing maple swift. And this year, for Mother’s day, they gave me a trip to the WEBS tent sale! I love my family 🙂

  224. Happy Birthday! I passed 37 a long time ago and continue to knit while a passenger in cars, trains, planes and boats. LYS are a bonus during my travels.

  225. Happy Birthday! I enjoyed your Fit to Flatter class, and I hope you have a wonderful week.

  226. Happy Birthday! 37 is awesome and I wish I were that age again. One year my family went camping and we were in a provincial park practically in the middle of nowhere i.e. have all your supplies when you enter the park because if you don’t you will need to drive a fair bit. Anyways when I walked to the beach there was a bulletin board that was advertising yarn and it said that if you went back out to the main road and drive north you will see a little shop siding onto the lake. I packed up my 2 young boys (at the time) and visited the little shop and that was when I was introduced to hand-dyed yarns and sock knitting. I never even had a stash, LOL! We’ve come a long way……

  227. Road trips always include fiber. Shall I tell you about the handsewn skirt I made my granddaughter during one summer’s trips in the ’46 Hudson? No.
    I have it. We were driving 300 miles to Portland Oregon. I was almost done with Waves of Grain. I had never grafted anything. With printed instructions and just before we reached the Columbia, I decided I was done knitting. Balancing the page of directions on my knee, I started. Wasn’t too bad until the first mistake. Undoing was harder, but possible. Started over, fewer mistakes. By the time it was done I had no fear of kitchenering.
    Happy Birthday and congratulations on 6 years of your blog.

  228. Happy birthday, Amy! It was so nice to see you at TNNA.

    I’m not much of a yarn stasher. But I do love patterns, and stitch dictionaries, too. I picked up a beautiful Japanese stitch dictionary in Tokyo in 2009, and have collected several more since then. So many stitches, so little time!

  229. Happy Birthday, Amy! I’m an Amy too and my birthday is tomorrow….Clearly I was meant to find your blog this very day!

    I have had far too few yarn-y jorneys thus far, but I recently went to The Fiber Event in Greencastle, Indiana. While it was already a fiber-inspired trip, the purchases I made there will always remind me of how much fun we had!

  230. oops, left a comment on this post against your last post.

  231. Happy Birthday! I feel your birthday agnst. I am turning 40 this year. I have not been lucky enough to go to a fiber fair but they are on my to do list. I have been part of many yarn crawls though. They are great fun too.

  232. Happy Birthday! On my last family vacation I taught my little (25 year old) brother to knit! He picked it up really quick and he’s been knitting steadily ever since. Definitely a fond vacation memory for me.

  233. I am a souvenir yarn enthusiast. When I travel, I take one day to look up yarn stores. Then I go to them, and see the sights nearby. Last summer I was in Paris. I visited La Droguerie, bought some yarn and a pattern for a shrug, and visited the large church across the street. Mmmm, yarn tourism!

  234. I’m late to the party, but Happy Belated Birthday! I’m turning 37 this year too – I will hang on to all these fun tidbits about the number 37. 🙂

  235. […] some other random yarny goodness that came about this week. I ready Amy Herzog’s blog and she posted on her birthday on the 21st of June. I wished her a happy birthday and ended up winning some yarn from her for […]

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