Welcome To Los Altos

My apologies to anyone on dial-up reading this post. It's a *little* picture heavy.

I took today off from the House Of Torture (tomorrow too!) and decided that it would be a nice day to visit Los Altos. Los Altos is one of the more exclusive areas of the Bay Area, the kind of place you'd expect retired bankers and their philanthropic wives to live. There's also an incredible number of churches for some reason. Neither of these was why I ventured down Hwy 280 though. I was off to Full Thread Ahead. I hadn't been there for a few months and wanted to see what was new.

On the way I passed the Main Street Cafe & Books. If they had yarn in this shop I'd never have to leave.

I also passed the local florist. Los Altos is actually more of a village than a city. You can tell the residents take great pride in their corner of the world. Trees line the streets and there are American flags everywhere. No Canadian ones though. They should work on that.

One of the things I like about Full Thread Ahead is they carry a lot of different yarns compared to most of the stores around here. You'd be hard pressed to find a single ball of Rowan or Debbie Bliss. And they have a wonderful wall of sock yarn.

Serious, serious droolage. I should have been more on the ball (get it, get IT? ha, that was a pun) and written down some brand names. But I didn't. So kill me.

Inspiration is everywhere, especially if you're going through a "Baby Sweater Phase" as I seem to be. Hollis Bischoff, the owner, is a delightful lady who makes you feel really welcome. I believe there was a summer camp going on while I was there as I've never seen quite so many kids in a yarn shop. However, they were all safely stowed away upstairs having a pizza for lunch while I wandered around.

Another great thing about Full Thread Ahead that I wasn't expecting? Very reasonable prices. Something relatively unheard of in Los Altos. I was so flabbergasted that I had to sit down and knit a while.

While I was working on my scarf a lady and her friend came into the shop and it was obvious the lady was a new knitter. She chose her yarn and then wanted to know if they sold something she could carry her project around in. Hollis showed her some lovely Lantern Moon bags at which point the lady turned to her friend and exclaimed, "Look, Cindy, you get to buy PURSES with this hobby!!" Ha.

Of course I bought yarn. As some of you may recall, I've been working on the Mystery Stole #3. Or at least I was. The yarn I chose just wasn't working for me color-wise. The farther along I got, the more I was sure I wanted the stole to be navy blue. Alas, I had no navy blue lace weight in the ol' stash. That has now been rectified and I guess I'll start over again.

So there you have it, knitting fans. Los Altos through the eyes of a yarn junkie.