View from the Empire State Building

Last week, I was on  holiday in New York City with the family and in between the museum visits and sightseeing, I did manage to check out some of Manhattan’s local yarn shops.

You cannot go to New York without a visit to Purl Soho, which is situated downtown in SoHo, near Spring Street subway stop on Line 6.

If you are familiar with their blog Purl Bee, it is exciting to be able to see and touch their beautiful samples knitted up with their own brand of luxury yarns.  I went there twice, the first visit was a bit short, as I had the husband and kids in tow.  The second visit without the entourage was much more productive.

Purl Soho Yarns

I was tempted by a few skeins of Loft and Shelter by Brooklyn Tweed for accessories, a very squishy skein of  Anzula – Cloud and a few skeins of Purl Soho own branded fingering line weight.

Yarns from Habu

Habu, which is a few blocks from  the Empire State Building, was a research visit for me, as  I wanted to extend the Habu range in my shop.

Situated in a very tiny shared office suite, not far from Madison Square Gardens,  the showroom had  a good but limited stock of their current ranges.

If you are crazy about Habu, it is worth a visit, but it is a good idea to make an appointment before visiting, as it is more of an office rather than a shop and space is rather limited.  My kids and husband waited patiently in the lobby, whilst I was buying.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

String Yarns, is a 10 minutes walk from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, this is definitely a designer yarn boutique – think “Vogue Knitting”!

There was a big table to park the kids and husband for a short browse around the shop, which had a good selection of Koigu. The shop has lots of natural light and on the second floor with floor to ceiling windows, which overlook Lexington Avenue.   They stock a selection of designer yarns and their own brand of luxury yarns.

The Guggenheim

If you are visiting the Guggenheim in the Upper East Side, and are looking for some mainstream American brands alongside luxury hand dyed yarns and tapestry threads,  Annie & Co Needlepoint, is a local yarn and needlepoint shop which is a short walk away.  Annie & Co closes at 6.30, so there was time to finish a quick tour of the Guggenheim before closing time and still have about 30 min to browse.

The knitting world is really a very small world, as it turned out that one of the shop assistants at Annie & Co.,was going to be at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival in a few weeks time!