Did you know that Kansas’ motto used to be “Home of Beautiful Women“? Now, it has a potentially even more inappropriate motto: “Kansas: As Big As You Think.”
Anyway, we went to Kansas, Adam’s homestate, a couple of weeks ago, and I managed to finangle some yarn store visits in between the barbeque and Tylenol Cold–induced naps…I got off the plane totally sick! I did a little research on Ravelry, on their Kansas City group boards, which had some good suggestions. So here’s a quick summary of the ones I saw:
THE STUDIO
Address: 1121 W 47th St
Kansas City, MO
Phone: (816) 531-4466
Website: thestudiokc.com
Also sells: Needlepoint canvas and supplies.
This was the first store I visited, and I was trying to assess its quality (to better budget my souvenir yarn buying) so I hassled Adam (who had visited Yarn Barn before) for his opinion. He said, “The Studio is to Purl as Yarn Barn is to School Products.” I was amused that he had been coerced into so many yarn store visits that he could make this analogy. When pressed he said, “Yarn Barn might have more yarn, but it looks like this store has a higher-quality selection.” And it was true, this store definitely had the most sophisticated selection, of both colors and brands, of all the stores we visited. Their owner/buyer has a good eye, I think. The store itself was also a nice, located on the corner of a little shopping area, just west of the Plaza. It was actually quite big as well, and there were a few customers sitting around knitting and chatting, and one of them swore up and down that this was the best yarn store in KC. The owner (I think that was her behind the counter) was also quite friendly.
(Yarn Barn is not actually spookily green…I think it’s just that this photo was taken at night when a street light shone on it.)
YARN BARN
Address: 930 Massachusetts St
Lawrence, KS 66044
Phone: (785) 842-4333
Website: yarnbarn-ks.com
Also sells: Looms and weaving supplies.
I was definitely wanted to visit this one because it was called Yarn Barn. Hello! Barn of yarn! Awesome name. Yarn Barn is in Lawrence, home of KU, Adam’s alma mater and winner of the 2008 NCAA men’s basketball championship, aka as the game that transformed Adam into a crazy sports fan. He gripped my arm so tight during the final minutes that I thought it might fall off. Yarn Barn is quite big, and probably had a pretty big selection of yarn. It did not necessarily have the most sophisticated selection–I just felt it had more of a workhorse selection of yarn than The Studio. This is probably a good store for sweater knitters–they seemed to have a large selection of a lot of solid, basic yarns.
Yarn Shop and More
Address: 7309 West 80th Street
Overland Park, KS 66204
Phone: (913) 649-YARN
Website: yarnshopandmore.com
This shop was recommended by Adam’s friends, who live close by. This store organizes their yarn by color, which personally, I found a confusing system. I picked up a skein of Dream in Color, and wanted to see what other colors they had, but it was hard to figure out easily or quickly. I didn’t spend a lot of time in this store because we had just spent hours eating barbeque, and I was a little tired, but it did seem big, though a little sparse. That impression might have been because that they had a lot of cubbies, but they weren’t packed to the gills. (I like stores that pack their cubbies full.)
There was a big list on the Kansas City Knitters’ board on Ravelry that I found helpful, complete with addresses and store hours, so I would recommend that as a yarn resource if you are going to the Sunflower State. Next time, I’ll probably try to hit up more places mentioned in the Design*Sponge Kansas City guide too.