Hello! As I said at the end of last week’s post, we added a couple of kilometres to the flax trail to visit a yarn shop. It is called Selden Sá! and is situated in Eastrum, a village of under 200 inhabitants.
For Selden Sá! to stay in business, either the people in Eastrum must be hugely prolific knitters eating up miles of yarn or there must be something about this out-of-the-way shop that makes people travel to it from far and wide. Let’s take a look around to find out.
Focused on flax, I spotted several linen yarns (e.g. Borgo de Pazzi Lino in photo at top). Lovely cool and summery. I also saw and fondled an extremely soft wool-and-cotton blend that would be perfect for a sweater for our grandson (photo below, to left of mannequins, third row from the top).
I’m hopeless at choosing things on the spot and regrettably didn’t buy any.
From people in my knitting group I’d already heard that Selden Sá! stocks many Scandinavian yarns and I recognized familiar ‘faces’ from Istex, Rauma, BC Garn and Holst Garn. There’s also a lot of Filcolana, a Danish brand I’m not familiar with but would definitely love to try.
For me, there is something so uplifting about browsing around in a yarn shop. All those colours! All those possibilities!
Don’t you just love it when a shop has lots of samples for inspiration?
A basket filled with swatches may not excite most people, but I could easily spend an entire afternoon studying them.
I wasn’t only browsing around, though, but also looking for something. What I needed was yarn for a pair of manly socks with an intricate stitch pattern in a light neutral, like solid grey or beige or something. What I left the shop with was a skein of hand-dyed variegated sock yarn in pink and taupe. Uh-oh, how unsensible! But very pretty, don’t you think?
I also bought a pair of wooden sock blockers – something I’ve been wanting to try for a long time.
I had just finished a pair of socks from a self-striping yarn and put them to soak as soon as we arrived home. To find out how much difference sock blockers make, I decided to block one sock and just hang the other sock to dry on the drying rack.
The socks fit my foot (shoe size 38) and the sock blockers were size 38-40. What I expected was that the sock would need to be stretched around the blocker. What actually happened was that the sock blocker disappeared completely inside the sock, hook and all! Upon drying, the sock shrank back a little, but still sat loosely around the blocker.
A bad buy? Well, that’s what I certainly thought at first. But when the socks were dry and I compared them, I could see a slight difference between the blocked and the unblocked sock. I don’t know if you can see it in the photo below, but the blocked sock (right) looked slightly neater, with more even stitches than the unblocked sock (left).
I expect the difference to be more marked in socks with a lace or cable pattern. I also suspect I need a pair of sock blockers in a larger size. Yes, I really think I need to pay Selden Sá another visit, for larger sock blockers, that soft wool-and-cotton yarn for our grandson and perhaps a few other things…
Do any of you have experience with sock blockers? Do you think they really make a difference? And do the blockers need to be larger than the socks or will that stretch out the knitted fabric too much?
I’d be grateful for your advice, but even if you don’t have any, I’m grateful for your visit. Bye! xxx
Dank je me mee nam naar Selden Sa!
Fijne post weer.
Lieve groet,
Marieke
Gezellig dat je even meereisde. Fijn weekend!
Wat een prachtige winkel! Op mijn sockblockers zitten de sokken zelden strak. Wel worden ze al liggend te drogen wel ‘netter’.
Ja, echt wel een bezoekje waard. O, dus jij hebt dat ook, dat de sokken er niet strak omheen zitten. Dat is goed om te weten. En ik vond idd ook dat de geblockte sok er wel iets netter uitzag.
Loved seeing the shop, and reading your thoughts. Nice socks!
Hi! What I forgot to say is that the shop also has a nice large table and serves teas and coffees. Wouldn’t it be nice to share a cuppa there? But having you drop in here virtually is lovely, too!
How can u buy yarn from y’all and is it reasonable
Hi Carol, This isn’t my yarn shop – it’s just a shop I’ve visited and enjoyed. It’s only a brick-and-mortar shop, without a webshop. So I’m afraid you’ll need to look for yarn elsewhere, or travel all the way to Friesland someday 😉