Wednesday, October 25th, 2006 by ames
My old Boston roommate amykins came to visit me the other weekend. It was lovely and fun, and the weather sort of behaved for part of the time. While much of the weekend was spent hanging out at my place and knitting, we took her last full day to tour the city – in our own special way. We did a knitting tour! Chicago has a few knitting and yarn stores, and up until this trip, I’d only been to two. I hit up Google and Local.Live.com to search out knitting stores in the area. LocalLive is fantastic – it allowed me to plot several different addresses on the map (as opposed to most mapping webpages, which limit you to one) and attach notes to each address. I used the Chicago RTA website to get train/bus information, saved it as a collection, printed it out, and we were set.
We visited Loopy Yarns, We’ll Keep You in Stitches, Sister-ART Studio, and Knit1. The stores were spread from the Loop northward, which allowed us to wander around Printer’s Row, the ever-so-ritzy Oak Street shopping area (if you have to ask, you can’t afford it), Lincoln Park, and Lincoln Square. Our verdict? The best: Loopy – a great variety of yarn (including an entire case filled with sockyarn), helpful but non-intrusive staff, a good book selection, and an all-around pleasure to browse in. The worst: We’ll Keep You in Stitches – stuffy and cramped, unfriendly staff, and yarn that was still in the bags and shoved into cubicles. The patterns and books were on average twenty years out of date. It felt like some rich woman’s plaything store. The store is located on Oak Street, and while the window shopping on the way there was fun, the store itself was a grave disappointment.
However! We found the most charming store in the world – Tender Buttons, located on N. Rush. It is, in short, a button store. But while you may find the perfect small white button for your dress shirt, you will also find antique buttons from the 1700s, handblown glass buttons, handcarved buttons, buttons with celebrity faces, buttons carved into miniature musical instruments, military uniform buttons, buttons of every shape and type. This store was a refreshing break in our busy day, and I highly recommend it.
—————-
Now playing: Britney Spears – …Baby One More Time
via FoxyTunes