The Round the World Trip blanket

I'm trying to do a series of posts that catch up with this year. The first post is all about my trip blanket. I finally finished it in January, way after our return in September.

The idea was to get a ball of yarn everywhere we stayed. This didn't always work out, but in the major cities where we stayed, I managed to find a yarn shop and often some yarn that was from the local area. I used the 10 stitch blanket pattern as I could do the yarns in order, which sometimes gave odd results, but that was the point for me, to keep it in order. See: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/ten-stitch-blanket

These are the shops I managed to find yarn:

San Francisco - Atelier Yarns, 1945 Divisadero St., San Francisco

Bellingham - Northwest Yarns, 1401 Commercial St., Bellingham

Haines - Dalton City Yarn, 312 Main St., Haines

Anchorage - Wooly Mammoth Alaska, 416 G Street, Anchorage

Talkeetna – The Patchwork Moose, 22262 Talkeetna Spur Road, Talkeetna, Alaska

I don't think I took a picture of the tiny bit of Quviut yarn I bought here!

Cordova - The NetLoft, 140 Adams Avenue, Cordova

New York - Purl Soho, 459 Broome St., New York

Boston - Newbury Yarns, Old South Meeting House, 2 Milk Street, Boston

Helsinki - Fiinaneule, Simonkatu 12, Helsinki

Edinburgh - McAree Brothers, 19 Howe Street, Edinburgh

Belfast – The Wicker Man, 18 High Street, Belfast

A great Irish Craft souvenir shop, well worth a visit. Even has yarn!

Cambridge - Sew, Knit, Craft, King St., Cambridge

Stow-on-the-Wold - Bourton Basket, The Old Forge, Moore Road, Bourton-on-the-Water
Maidstone - Hobbycraft Maidstone, St Peters Wharf, St Peter’s St., Maidstone
Faversham – The Yarn Dispensary, 6 Market Pl, Faversham, United Kingdom
Vienna – Meidlinger Knopfkonig, Meidlinger Hauptstrasse 32, 1120 Wien, Austria

My favourite shop was in Cordova. The Net Loft is run by an amazing women who has managed to make this remote, off the tourist track yarn, art, embroidery, souvenier shop, quite a success. Full of amazing yarns, including locally dyed and working on locally produced, as well. She has a program where they knit Ganseys for the local fisherman, so successfully that the author of the book that inspired them, Knitted Ganseys by Beth Brown-Reinsel, created a Gansey just for them. For more information: https://thenetloftak.com/pages/cordova-gansey-project

Many birds migrate through Cordova, it is Alaska, and they created an exhibition of knitted birds and continues to get submissions from around the world. Have a look at this:  https://thenetloftak.com/pages/copper-river-delta-birds-by-hand

Asking at a local cafe, it was admitted that they didn't know a women who didn't knit. If only it were true everywhere.

Oh, and here is the blanket...