Purl Soho, aka Purl About New York

As promised I'm back to report on my trip to snowy New York and more specifically my visit to Purl Soho.

The last time I visited New York, I think in 2006, Purl Soho it was in a smaller premises and I bought some Bly Sky Alpaca's Brushed Suri. I still have that particular yarn in my stash because I could never decide what to do with such fluffiness. I simply wanted to bring something home from an exciting New York yarn store as a souvenir. On this latest visit they are now in a much bigger shop which includes fabric and yarn in the same store, but despite having a lot of yarn squirrelled away at home already I still wanted to bring back a little something from my trip.

When I entered the shop it was a busy hub of activity, which is always a great sign, especially considering it was 3pm on a Thursday. Were all these people skiving off work too? Instantly the sales assistants greeted me with a friendly "hello" and left me to browse.

Yarn packs the walls all the way to the back of the shop where it is replaced with fabrics and haberdashery. On every surface there are examples of knitted garments you can make with the luscious yarns, most of them are made from the free patterns on the shops very own blog, the Purl Bee. It was lovely to be able to squash and feel everything as I wandered around as well as get the inspiration from  the knitted up items.

The customer service was excellent. As I pulled my tiny wheeled suitcase around behind me one of the sales assistants asked if I wanted to put it behind the till so that I could browse more easily. This instantly made my shopping much more enjoyable. Then I asked if someone could show me some yarns that I might not be able to get in the UK and a lovely red head lady took me around the whole shop showing me all the different yarns they carried and telling me a little about each. When I mentioned that I was thinking about knitting a hat they printed out one of their free online hat patterns for me immediately. The service was so good, friendly, knowledgeable and thoughtful. I wish all yarn shops were like that.

Kiefer couldn't resist getting in this photo

Eventually I settled on this skein of deep green Brooklyn Tweed Loft, with an accompanying hat pattern and a Purl Soho zip up, nylon, project bag. I had never seen or heard of the yarn in the UK before but sadly I must have been living under a rock as you can indeed buy this yarn in the UK. The purchase is still special to me though as it will always remind me of my quick stop over in New York and my lovely experience in Purl Soho.

Bye Bye NY. Till next time.