Saturday Yarn Store Crawl with an Alpaca Farm Stop.

So, this past week, we had a visitor at our Wednesday night knitting group. Pat from England, who's blog is Mysterious Yarns, came to our group meet up and and then I planned a yarn store crawl for yesterday. It was a blast!! First we stopped at Needle & Knobs, and then we headed off to Shi'loh Alpacas, which is run by Jamie and Bob and is so close in Seminole, FL.
They called their little haven, the oasis in a concrete jungle. They have 8 male alpacas on their land and 5 females on another farm. The alpacas are adorable and Jamie and Bob are amazing!! They were super informative and it was wonderful to hear her talk about her alpacas and the alpaca farms in FL. The only shocking part was that she said there are farms that don't use the fiber and store it in warehouses. We all gasped in horror. She is trying to help them start processing it and use the fiber before it goes bad. We may be trying to help her with that as well. :)
I think we all learned something and will definitely go back!! She has some fiber that she wants spun and knit into something because she is neither a knitter or spinner. So we are going to try to get a spinner in our group to spin it up for her and then we have another person who wants to knit a shawl for her. The fiber is from one of her first alpaca's that has passed away. I hope that we can organize that and give her something nice. She mentioned an alpaca festival, which might be our next road trip.
After the Alpaca farm, we headed to Knits & Krafts in Seminole for short visit. The owner is very nice and very helpful. Then we were hungry and drove to the Lucky Dill Deli on Alt US 19 for some yummy sandwiches and cheesecake!! I only had a couple bits of mine but it was YUMMY!!

After fueling our tummies we headed to Uncommon Threads, one of my favorite LYS's. This is where I bought my only purchase on the trip other than food and drink....some yummy merino fiber in a beautiful Cherry Blossom colorway. Check it out!!

I just want to pet it!! but it will be spun up...eventually! After some spinning wheel talk and petting of fiber and yarn, we drove over to Odessa, FL to go to Fiber Arts. This store was a little upscale but had a beautiful selection of yarns and a TON of Noro in all colorways and styles. Last we stopped at Starbucks on our way home. We started the day out at 10am and didn't get back until a little after 6pm. It was a long day but we all had a blast. People joined us for parts but the core group in my car made it all the way. Thank you Pat for inspiring this wonderful trip!!

Well..gotta run off to dinner but hope everyone is doing well.

Happy Spinning, Knitting and don't forget to give you pets some loving!!

Gnat