Yarn Crawl According to Maktaaq

Bread Garden 10 am: fortification for the long journey

We had coffee and breakfast. Turns out that Land of the Dead is a worthwile movie.


Burnaby Knitworks 11 am: 1st yarn store

None of us bought anything because we thought we'd save for the long journey ahead. Instead we spent an hour or so flipping through knitting books and observing male models. It seems that European male models do not smile. Is it because they can't wait to dump their girlfriends for having forced them to wear a knitted monstrosity?

Its proximity to our regular watering hole will make Burnaby Knitworks a frequent stop. The bargain bin had some interesting goodies and we asked about crochet classes.


Wool & Wicker 1 pm: 2nd yarn store

Some of us got more lost than others. We did quite a bit of wool-petting. Then we got down to business.

Deciding on yarns was difficult. Wool & Wicker aranges yarn by colour. It made it harder for me to find what to look for. Most of the yarns were also beyond my budget: as a very hapless knitter, I don't deserve good yarn.

The other knitters were faster in purchasing. I made the mistake about changing my mind midway through my transaction from the corset to the legwarmers and thus, spent most of our time in this one store. Finally, I ditched the blue yarns and went for the "grenadine" yarn. Hot pink legwarmers are more my style anyhow.


Daiso 2 pm: 3rd yarn store

Though not technically a yarn store, Daiso has a yarn display. Everything else is so exciting at Daiso none of us left with just yarn.

My knitting-related purchases were a tape measure and three balls of a black-and-blue chunky yarn. Then I found an asymmetrical blue vase shaped like a half-circle. I also got myself two notebooks with illustrations of, according to MaikoPunk, "rabbits on mushrooms." I also found myself a pair of black-and-white legwarmers, which I am now wearing.

Aberdeen Centre, where Daiso is located, also has a great chandelier store where MaikoPunk picked out her bordello-style nightlight.

The other great thing about Aberdeen Centre is the very Asian food court. Lychee-coconut drinks, green curry, takoyaki, sushi, steamed buns...


Yaohan Centre 4:30 pm: 4th yarn store

Janet left us and we rushed across the street from Aberdeen Centre to the last knitting store we could manage.

I meant to get a business card; in the end, I even forgot the name of the store.

Currently, however, they have a special of 40% off on selected yarns. The yarns, still expensive after the discount, were funky Japanese types. Too bad they are all protected behind heavily taped plastic bags.

This store does have Cantonese knitting group lessons. Some of you might welcome the challenge.

I didn't buy anything there. I did see a Japanese knitting book with the sort of un-usual accessories I like. But, as I am already in the middle of a protracted battle with one Japanese knitting book, I thought it wise not to fight a battle on two fronts.

At this point, we realized we could never make it to Birkland Brothers before the 5:30 closing time, so our group dissolved.


Conclusion: Very fun. We felt like we were on a road trip. We did leave out quite a few stores so we will have to remedy this situation in the future.