Buenos Aires Yarn District - Part I

I just finished typing a whole blog about the yarn district, with links and all kinds of information and then...I hit the wrong button and lost the whole thing!  Annoying!

I have to learn that just like typing in Word, you have to save ocassionally and then go back in and add more!

Okay, Here we go again.  Sister Casos and I went to the yarn district this Saturday.  Two blocks of Yarn Heaven.

We took the #15 bus (it's green...that's important to know.)  from just down the street from the hotel right to the corner of Scalabrini Ortiz and Cordoba , that's the yarn district.  The ride cost us 1.25 pesos or 27 cents. More on the bus system later.  Suffice it to say, that I think I've got it figured out.  I now understand how to use the Guia T or the Multiguia which are small booklets that are like mini keymaps with bus, subte and train information.  Next challenge will be to figure out how to use the train to go on weekend trips. We rode the same color and number bus back.

 I knew we were under a time constraint. We got there at 11am and the stores start to close at 1pm.  So I didn't get but the one picture up above.  Yes!  They yarn bombed the place (see the photo above).  You can see three poles covered with knitted yarn!  It's kind of like graffiti, only knit or crocheted and attached onto things.  Kind of cool, usually not legal.

Going to go save, then I'll add more.

My favorite shops.  I'll put in a link if there is one...

Milana - This is a beautiful shop.  Walls and Walls of cubbie holes full of yarn.  It's well marked with prices and types of yarn and the staff is really friendly and helpful.  Here's some of what we saw.


cachemira – cashmere...you will also see cashmerillo, which is an acrylic yarn that is realy soft.
lana – wool
seda – silk

 
merino - merino
alpaca – alpaca
acrílico – acrylicThe acrylics were very nice too.  Take a look at the website.  If you don't habla espanol, just enjoy the pictures!  I am definitely going back for a tweed merino I saw and some of the cashmere and alpaca!







Here's something to give you  an idea of the prices.

In some of the stores there were bins marked 8-10 pesos ($1.70-$2.13)  You have to pay attention as to whether the price is by the kilo (2.2 lbs) or by the ovillo (ball or skein).  If it is by the kilo there are scales that you can weigh it yourself or someone will weigh it for you.  We saw some of the nice yarn, the Alpaca and Merino going for 110- 235pesos ($26-$50)

Another place I really want to go back to us Arte Natural.  It's a tiny shop full of all kinds of interesting yarn.  Some of it is just balls of jersey material cut in narrow strips and wound for rug making.  But buttons and Shawl clasps that are beautiful.  Can't find a website for the shop, but here is a blog with pictures of some of the stuff in the shop.

The one kind of yarn that we saw in several shops that truly was new to me was a pre-knit type of yarn.  You know how the finger knitting that the kids do, or the one you can do on a small spool with a few nails in the top and you get a long thin rope of knitting?  Well this is balls of it that you can knit as a bulky knit.  I'll have to get a picture next time.

We ended up in NUBE.  It's a big chain of stores.  If you check on the link I did look at the bottom of the page.  There's a slide show of the inside of the store.  This one is like pretty much all the ones we went into except for Arte Natural and Milana was run by men.  Yes, Men running a yarn shop!  Some of them were in their 20's some older.  This shop was big and crowded.  There were bins everywhere and the walls had the cubbies full of the nicer yarns. 

A couple of notes:  When you go to pay.  One person will sack up your purchase, weigh the yarn etc.  Usually the clerks all pass the bags to the one manager who actually does the cash or credit exchange.  You give him your cash or your credit card and DNI (that's the National Identification Card - we are waiting for our appointment to get one in November).  He takes care of the transactions.

Also, you will rarely find pattern books or patterns at all at the yarn shops.  You get those at the local bookstore or newsstand.  A few places like Nube and Cisne have single sheet patterns available or a magazine of patterns that their shop produces.