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This is for Esperanza, who didn’t leave an email ID. I had two sources of yarn (most if not all of it non-natural fibres) in Delhi. Both of them were in South Delhi, I don’t have much idea about shops in the other areas.
1. Munirka Market, there is a store called Sushila (depot?), which sells yarn in hanks by weight, and has several different gauges of yarn. On the same row (this is the main road of Munirka) there are a couple of other stores which sell labelled skeins of yarn as well as other yarn in hanks by weight. You will have to do your own winding with these.
2. Sarojini Nagar market, in the lane where they sell vegetables (trust me, this is the best landmark) there is a line of stores amongst which is one craft store which sells yarn – again mostly by weight and unidentified. They also do needles/hooks/notions. I’m sorry, but I don’t remember the name of the store. But again, there will be several other stores selling yarn.
A couple of things to note about yarn/needles/other material in India.
In my experience, we do not get any of the following here:
1. The international brands of yarn/needles/hooks (Pony is locally made)
2. Complete content information on yarn labels
3. Larger sizes (higher than 5 mm) of needles/hooks.
4. Natural fibres, including cotton, wool, and so on.
5. Plastic hooks/needles
I might be wrong, but I haven’t encountered any of these in India.
You say you will be going to Jalandhar/Punjab. I think you might have a better source there, since I believe a lot of the yarn manufactured in India is in fact made in Punjab (Ludhiana, mostly, I think). You might have better luck finding natural fibres and larger size needles/hooks there.
I hope this will help you. *Please* write and let me know of your experiences. I’d love to build up my “database” about knitting/crochet supplies in India.
From Barbara (Nashville Crocheter) at Crochetville. I can’t believe how my wishlist is being fulfilled. I love that place…
Here is a close-up of the Clover yarn cutter:
I got so lucky yesterday! After much 
work I finally found a shop in Vizag which sells the thicker gauged thread. YAY! So I raided it and came home with the following goodies. The damages were around Rs 800…never spent so much in one day before.
Rita Weiss Ed. Pineapple Crochet Designs
Indian book of crochet patterns-cheap (please ignore the spelling…)!
Creamy Anchor thread in size 40…20 g balls
Red Heart in grey and white…100 g balls!
Two balls each of yellow, maroon, variegated and light tan in Anchor size 20…20 g balls
But what excites me most is this: The shop had something called “Knitting cotton” from Anchor, which I think will be good for making myself clothing items….I can’t wait, and will soon go hunting for pattern…YUM! Only 28 shades available, but that’s a good beginning.
Boohoo, the post ate my PAC. Or somebody else did. My Crochetlist CAT PAC donor told me she had mailed my PAC on July 7th, but I still haven’t got it. Its now almost 20 days, so I have to conclude somebody got their grubby hands all over my PAC….Why, why, why!
I gathered up samples of all the yarns I have and burnt them at the stake in a candle. The results: every single one of them is manmade!!!! They all curled up and died on me in a hard fused mass. Boohoo. Anyway, that answers the sneaky doubt I had that maybe one of them at least was cotton or wool…Sigh! A couple did have ashy ends which came off when I rubbed them, could they be blends with some natural fibres?
I’m lovin’ it!
A Christmas Elf dropped off a Christmas in July package for me today and I was jumping up and down because it had:
Susan Bates Q hook in Luxite
which should be perfect for that bathmat I want to make. Then
Beaded stitch markers…my first-ever!
Now I don’t have an excuse to be monochromatic any more in the things I make! And
Crochet World magazine June 2005-fresh off the press!!!
Call me sick, but I’m getting almost as much pleasure out of sniffing it as out of reading it 
Thank you, Cordelia!
I finished testing the pattern for the doily that I bragged blogged about a few posts ago. But no pictures yet. I’ve sent off my report to the designer and when she finally approves, I shall duly put up images.
The other doily is what I’m hoping to send my partner in the Crochetville Doily Swap. So for obvious reasons, I don’t want to post it here…
On an exciting note (for me) I’ve made contact with a lady in Bangalore who crochets and also uses the net for crochet-related activity. She says she has actually sold stuff, so I’m eager to find out more, including how she prices things, what materials she uses and so on. She does it in a personal circle, I think, not on the net. I found her thanks to a friend on Crochetlist CAT which I wrote about at the weekend. Thanks so much, Glenna!
Today was my second CAT at Crochetlist, and it was fun again!. Some different people and some same ones, but I won a PAC again! YAY!!!
For those who don’t know, Crochetlist is a mailing list for crocheters from all over the world and every month from February to October they have a 24-hr chat. Today was this month’s chat (Crochet-A-Thon). Every hour there is a draw for those who’ve been there the whole hour, and the winner gets a PAC!!! I won a PAC last time, too, just haven’t received it yet. You know where you can see pictures when it arrives!
Better yet, one of the hosts couldn’t make it at the last minute, so I jumped in with both feet and hosted for an hour. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be, and quite fun, actually. I might actually volunteer, next time…So today I was totally distracted. In fact at the time of posting this, the CAT is still going on, but I felt I’d lingered long enough….So I tore myself away.
There are some members there from Crochetville, too so it it was good getting to know them a little better. Courtney, for one. Anyone else? There are some blogless…
I gaze longingly at the Secret Pal swaps at Crochetville. They sound very interesting. But I’m restrained by a couple of things….
-> Just to mail a package from here to the US (for example) requires at least $11 (if it is to arrive in my lifetime). And that is just for envelopes. I haven’t enquired yet about boxes. So even if I sent just empty boxes twice, I’d be at the spending limit (if I understand it correctly). A lot of the supplies I buy costs much less than that…unless it is in bulk, then I shudder to think what the postage would be…You might remember the green unholy mess that I bought back in June:
-> Most (if not all) SP packages seem to include yarn and/or other crochet accessories. I can’t think that what we get here will actually be worth sending out to anyone…Not yarn or hooks, definitely. That only leaves endless amounts of my own handmade stuff, which would get boring after a time, I should think! Has anyone been in a Secret Pal swap which didn’t involve yarn/hook items?
-> Given Crochetville has about 3 and a half participants from India, how “secret” a Secret Pal would I be, anyway?
If you are still reading this and haven’t rushed off to to strike me from your blogroll subscriptions, maybe you could tell me what you think….I should stick to RAOKs and Christmas in July and the occasional doily swap, I think.
Update:
I’m hugely gratified by the number of comments I’ve got on this post. So many of you have taken the time to write in, and with so much thought behind your comments, I love reading all of them.
Most people seem to agree that swaps are great fun, and I think so, too. To reply to one point raised by Veronica, although I needn’t give my return address on the packages, I’d still have to stick Indian stamps on my stuff and that would be a dead give-away! It would be fun to play the guessing game, but only if there was more choice in the guessees (new word alert!!!)
Hmm.
I think for now I’ll stick to RAOKing and swapping things I could actually use (NOT afghan squares!) RAOKs and wishlists seem to be a bit more flexible for my purposes at this time. I should have great fun building up stacks of bookmarks, doilies (now I have an excuse to make more. YAY!) scrubbies, dishcloths (maybe not, they seem to use cotton yarn….How about socks? I know exactly who can tell me more about these…)
**goes off mumbling**
swakrta.com 