2012 – 2016 Hobby Knitter
After moving to New York from Detroit, the first thing I did was buy some yarn (Duh…). The corporate apartment that was provided by my husband’s company was within a walking distance from Knitty City, a local yarn store (LYS) in Upper West Side. I bought some cozy red and black yarn and whipped out some hats.
Purl Soho was another LYS that I frequented at that time, because it was in the middle of Soho. Going there made me feel like a cool urban person living my life in this exciting city. Typical novice New Yorker… There I bought some really soft Merino wool yarn and made a scarf out of it.
Then I discovered Lion Brand Yarn Studio in Greenwich Village. The store carries not only its widely distributed workforce yarns like Wool Ease and Homespun, but also unique LB Collection yarns. I took up some knitting and crochet classes there, and also learned to dye yarn. (Update: It was announced that the store would be closing in April, 2020)
Aside from LYS, Craftsy (now Bluprint) online courses gave me a wide variety of opportunities to learn new techniques like cabling, intarsia, stranded and double knitting. Using the newly acquired techniques and affordable yarn from Lion Brand, I created more scarves, hats and mittens.
To some, I may already appear as a crazy knitter, but looking back, I was merely a hobby knitter at best. I still knew very little about yarn weights, fiber contents, or all those wonderful indie dyers and designers out there…
Simple ribbed hat 
Simple ribbed scarf 
Cabled hat 
Cabled scarf 
Intarsia scarf 
Colorwork 
Colorwork 
Stranded knitting 
Double knitting 
Crochet 
Natural dyeing
Duke of Nikko 