La Bella Vita

I love it when I'm in a strange town and hear there's an Open Knitting Night at the LYS.

While we were in Mineral Point, we got to knit with the locals at the wonderful La Bella Vita. Owner Molly Walz offers coffee, tea, and wine, and was most welcoming to Renee, Lori, and I.


I loved this--a mom and two daughters were working hard on their projects.


I get very excited when I see kids jumping into the fiber arts. And look how this child was dressed:


Burgundy velvet jacket and spriggy lawn blouse. How cute! And note the ring she's wearing. Why didn't my mother dress me like that? Mineral Point is definitely a place apart.

Renee and I were working on socks with yarn bought at this very shop last spring. And we realized we were in the presence of greatness--the actual Sandy of Sandy's Palette--the dyer of that very sock yarn.


As luck would have it, she had brought new yarn with her. Renee and I each bought a couple skeins and Molly taught us to wind the skeins into cakes.



I was really pleased with these colors--subtle enough so that patterned socks, maybe even lace ones , should work well.

And here was a terrific buy: Briggs and Little Heritage wool tweed. $5 a skein.


Cheap! I bought enough for a sweater for only $35. Not bad. And the ball-winding was part of the service.

I'm putting a swift and ball winder on my Santa list for sure.

La Bella Vita also sells vintage clothing and accessories and must-haves for the home, like lavender dryer sheets and geranium dishwashing liquid. Molly merchandises it all so well--shoppers just want to linger and poke around for another hour or so.