Mass Ave Knit Shop

I love weddings, particularly when the people getting married are awesome. This last weekend, my family crammed into my dad’s minivan to make the trek to Cincinnati, OH where my godbrother married his high school sweetheart. It was all-around perfect, but the festivities didn’t leave me any time for my usual LYS explorations, so Mom and I had to get our fix on our way there.

Whenever I road-trip, I always check the Ravelry Road Trip Planner. You can choose how far you want to go off your route, and it shows you how many people have stashed yarn from those shops. This is a good indicator of a store’s popularity/that the store is still open. When I entered our trip destinations, I found one shop had over 1100 shoppers. I knew that’s where we had to stop:

This is the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis, IN. While close to the highway, it was a little tricky to get to. However, the shop is well worth it:

This is the largest LYS I’ve ever been in! It was perfect for meandering. Most of the major yarn brands were present, and they had a pretty good selection of indie dyers. Nothing local to Indiana, though. Apparently they usually carry local dyer Oink, but were out of stock at the time that I was visiting.

The door on the right side of the last photo lead to their sale room, which was also pretty impressive:

One wall was lined with full bookshelves, the other three lined with those wire crates filled with yarn. Look at those blocking shawls! The staff was a little busy to answer my questions about them, like whether they were staff projects or customer projects, or if this was a service they offered (like The Studio does) or if customers were just utilizing the big space. Still, they’re gorgeous and I’m glad I got to see them.

A featured indie dyer was Knitted Wit, who has a line of sock yarns inspired by National Parks. Mom picked out the Redwoods color, which is gorgeous browns and greens. Having nothing local in stock, I was resigned not to get anything until I found some solid black sock yarn. Stupid, I know, but I want to make some color pooling socks, and I wanted it for cuffs, heels, and toes.

If you find yourself in Indianapolis, I recommend checking out Mass Ave! Have you been before? Or did I miss another really cool shop on my way? As always, I’d love to hear about it!