June 25, 2005
Doce días
The last time I took a vacation of longer than a week was before I became a knitter three years ago. Isn't that crazy? You can see, then, why I'm super-excited about our 12-day honeymoon in Spain. Twelve whole days of no work, good food, and the relaxed lifestyle of Andalucia with my new husband. Divino.
Such luxury does, however, present me with a bit of a packing dilemma. Though my backpacking days are over, I still prefer to travel light. If I were to pack enough yarn to keep my busy on a 12-day vacation, "travelling light" would be a metaphysical impossibility. Running out of things to knit is out of the question, of course, so I'm left with the unavoidable conclusion that I will have to buy yarn in Spain. Darn.
As I do whenever I face a dilemma, I turned to Google to help me figure out just where in Spain I would buy yarn. I found some helpful blog posts (here, here, here and here) to get me pointed in the right direction. I learned that Spain is not the knitter's paradise that the UK and France are, and that the biggest yarn company in Spain is Katia.
Off to the Katia website I went, in search of the list of stores in Spain that carry their yarns. Strangely, there was no such list on the website. It looked like official Katia people frequented their forums, so I posted a question about stores in the major cities we'll be visiting. About a week later, this e-mail landed in my inbox:
| Apreciada Sra.: | Dear Madam |
| Ante todo muchas gracias por confiar en nuestra marca. | First, thank you for your confidence in our brand. |
| Contestando a su pregunta en el foro, seguidamente le anotamos unas direcciones de tiendas en Sevilla y Granada, donde podrá en contrar nuestras lanas. | To answer your question from the forum, we note the addresses of shops in Seville and Granada where you can find our yarns/wools below. |
| En espera de haberla complacido, reciba un cordial saludo, | In the hope that we have satisfied you, receive our best wishes, |
| FIL KATIA, S.A. | KATIA FIBERS |
SEVILLA
Mercado Tiro de Linea, pto. 53
Madre Rafols, 3
Juan Rabadan, 4
Las Fuentezuelas local-6 ACC-D
Colombia, 10
Francos, 21
Espartinas, 1
Bordadoras, 6 local-1
A.Alcalde Luis Uruñela, 12 as.D *Merceria La Moraleja*
GRANADA
Cisne, 3
Libreros, 6
San Anton, 60 bajo
Pie de la Torre, 4
Palencia, 19
Gran Via de Colón, 57
Avda. Cadiz, 8
Looks like I'd better brush up on my Spanish knitting terminology! (Actually, to be accurate, I should learn my Spanish knitting terminology. I wasn't a knitter when I learned Spanish and sadly haven't had as much opportunity to use Spanish since I learned to knit.) Here's to twelve whole days of no work, good food, the relaxed lifestyle of Andalucia with my new husband -- and plenty of yarn.
Posted by shannon at June 25, 2005 11:35 AM | For related posts:
Comments
Oh, I'm so jealous! Not of the wedding thing or the honeymoon (although totally happy and fabulous for you!), but to go back to Spain is a dream of mine. Granada and Sevilla are so beautiful, this was one of my favorite parts of spain as well as Barcelona. And yarn stores too! Paradiso!
When I was there in '93, I was not a knitter and I do like a lot of Katia yarns. In fact, I'm using two different yarns right now for two of my projects. I think you will find yarns that you will like. If you want something summery, you might look at the Katia Idea.
Posted by: Wanda at June 27, 2005 9:21 AM
Oye, Gringa, when you get back can you let me know if the terminology you linked to is accurate? I'm part of a Stitch 'n Bitch that is trying to have a S'n'B en Español once a month, but of course that's not vocab they teach in the classroom and we have no native speakers yet!
And also, may I mention how freaking lovely 12 days in Spain with a smooch-issimo new hubby sounds? Enjoy!!
Posted by: Zabet at June 27, 2005 11:54 AM
Gracias for posting the Spanish knitting terminology!! I live in Mexico, and those words are definitely helpful. Although it seems like some of the words are different here--por ejemplo, yarn is called *estambre*. You'll have to let us know how the yarn shopping and knitting chatting goes. Have a great trip!
Posted by: Ali at June 27, 2005 10:24 PM
Hi,
I found the Knitting Meetup site recently (http://knitting.meetup.com/) where you can find knitting groups by country. Maybe you can find some in Spain... but I am thinking you might not have time to knit that much! Enjoy!
Posted by: Zrinka at June 28, 2005 2:27 PM
Hola,
There is another web-site for knitting terminology in Spanish, but you have to know some Spanish first. Since you do, check it out: http://www.canetta.it/ManiDiFata.cfm?Cod=27&Inizio=1&CodPunto=44&cod1=54&lingua=3
If that doesn't work, I can email it to you.
Posted by: Amy Lu at June 28, 2005 5:20 PM