Last week I helped out with the TTC Kni­ta­long and yarn-hopped with a won­der­ful group of peo­ple around the city yarn-craft­ing and shar­ing laughs! Thought I’d share some highlights!

Oh and if you aren’t famil­iar, the TTC Kni­ta­long is a char­i­ty event that ben­e­fits Sis­ter­ing, a trans-inclu­sive sup­port and drop-in cen­tre for women in down­town Toron­to. Live around TO and missed it this year? You can read all about how it works here so you can be all ready next year! :D

Our route start­ed at my local yarn store, the very cozy and friend­ly Porch Swing Yarn­som­ni­acs. Mike is such a troop­er, he had a wed­ding to attend in the after­noon but joined us for the morn­ing, work­ing on a Huf­flepuff scarf :) Also, note the bril­liant Star Wars sweater that the own­er of Yarn­som­ni­acs cre­at­ed!! (It’s on the back of the wood­en rock­ing chair — you can see it in all its glo­ry here :D)

We then hopped over to the bright and sun­ny Knit-O-Mat­ic. Must remem­ber that they car­ry Lily Sug­ar ‘n Cream cot­ton. I love sum­mer knit­ting with cotton.

Eweknit not only has yarn, it also has WATG kits (heart-eyes) and tons and tons of gor­geous fabric!

Then we took a break for lunch. We went to Lit­tle Sito for Lebanese brunch, which I’ve nev­er had before. The per­fect­ly poached eyes on rich fried cheese, avo­ca­do, herbed home fries, oh my. High­ly rec­om­mend it!

After lunch we went over to Yarns Untan­gled in vibrant Kens­ing­ton Mar­ket. It has the per­fect knit­ting spot for knitting/napping under the tree :) Also love that this shop always car­ries prod­ucts from local arti­sans like greet­ing cards, soaps and but­tons, in addi­tion to unique hand-dyed yarns.

Final­ly, we spent the rest of the after­noon at Rom­ni Wools in the isles and isles, floor to ceil­ing full of wool­ly good­ness. (every­one quick­ly dis­ap­peared behind the yarn before I could take a pic­ture :S)

Knit­ting along on the TTC! Knit­ting while stand­ing in a crowd­ed, mov­ing street­car is a Toron­ton­ian superpower. 

I’m actu­al­ly quite direc­tion­al­ly chal­lenged (had to con­sult with my com­pass a cou­ple of times through­out the trip!), so thank­ful for par­tic­i­pants who super knew where they were going, and for a rel­a­tive­ly easy, relax­ing route :) Though because I’ve nev­er led a team before I was quite ner­vous about remem­ber the route and keep­ing time, so I did­n’t try to buy any­thing until our last stops. But I did bring home sweater quan­ti­ties of Brig­gs & Lit­tle wool (Canada’s old­est woolen mill!) in these beau­ti­ful shades of green, a back issue of Pom Pom mag­a­zine with love­ly sum­mer sweater pat­terns, and a beeswax food wrap with piles of cats on it to reduce the use of Saran wrap! 

We’re so for­tu­nate­ly to have so many local inde­pen­dent yarn stores in Toron­to! I’ve always just known they are there but don’t real­ly vis­it, because going to Michaels is eas­i­er, and I’ve start­ed to take them for grant­ed. Will have to make a point to vis­it them more often! 

Wish­ing every­one a won­der­ful week!