Last week I went out to the South Fork of Long Island on the Hampton Yarn Hop which was a bus trip organized by the lovely Phillys Howe. From New York City to Montauk, we went to 3 great yarn shops and a llama farm where we saw a lamb sheared for the first time. We were joined on our trip by some notable knitting "rockstars"; Rosemary Drysdale, author of Entralac, and Carla Scott executive editor at Vogue Knitting and editor in chief at Knit Simple magazines.

Our first stop was Purl by the Sea where Kay Gardiner, coauthor of the Mason-Dixon Knitting books and blog, gave a little talk about some of her blanket patterns. It was really nice to meet Kay and the shop was just adorable! I bought a beautiful skein of Rowan Drift (prettiest shade of red you've ever seen) that I've already managed to knit up into a super top secret sample for something... (more to come on that (hopefully))

Next up, we had a nice lunch at Inlet where we got a beautiful view of Montauk Bay and the vast array of wildlife that live there (we even saw jelly fish!). The weather was great and I even managed to not get a sun burn for once!<!--more-->

[caption id="attachment_737" align="alignnone" width="495" caption="Hillary at our table overlooking Montauk Bay"][/caption]

After lunch we headed over to the Long Island Livestock Company where we met the very charismatic and talented Tabbethia who showed us where our yarn comes from (not the belly of a sheep, as it turns out). This was truly the highlight of the trip for me. I bought some beautiful brown shades of llama yarn that I can hardly wait to dig into!

After that we went to Knit! where we enjoyed some wine and cheese and a preview of the winter issue of Vogue Knitting complete with real samples of the garments and pages of the magazine. What a treat!

I met some really fantastic people on the bus. This is Cindy and Lisa who coincidentally were knitting my Gowanus Shawl pattern. It was quite a surprise when they recognized me from the photograph on the pattern! This is the first time something like that has happened to me, so I just had to snap a pic. They were really nice people that I'm so glad I got to meet.

I also had the pleasure of sitting next to Rosemary Drysdale, who, as I mentioned before is the author of entralac, which I coincidentally won in a raffle on the bus right before we met! Rosemary was just a lovely woman and we chatted all the way back to New York City. I really hope I get the opportunity to meet her again.

I had such a great time on this trip! I'd definitely do something like it again if I get the chance.