Yep, Jenna and I headed up the coast on a beautiful SoCal Sunday because we had heard that that there are several fiber haunts in the little Danish settlement just north of Santa Barbara. More importantly, I needed a drum carder and apparently these fantastic tools are readily available in ye old Solvang along with all the Danish pastries one can consume. Twist my arm...
We arrived just shortly after 10:00 am and parked in front of one of the ubiquitous windmills dotting the village.
Before we commenced shopping Jenna and I headed over to Mortensen's Bakery for a couple of pastries. I had a lovely, flaky rasberry danish with an H2O chaser while Jenna had similar treat filled with apples. Yum! Tummies topped off, we were ready to begin our search for fabulous fiber.
Our first stop was at Thumbelina, a cross stitch shop.
There I was able to pick up a canvas of Viking ships and several cross stitch pamphets from the 60's and 70's. Great finds! Okay, I'm a cross stitch novice at the moment, but for stitched Viking ships, I will definitely jump into this craft feet first!
Next we mosied down the street in order to peruse Rasmussen's upper floor. It's basically an alcove filled with fabric, yarn and findings. Nothing I haven't seen before, but definitely worth a walk through.
Finally, our Solvang raison d'etre, Village Spinning and Weaving.
Oh. My. God. All I could have hoped for and then some.
Needless to say, I've been to my share of yarn stores in Los Angeles, the greater US and Europe (this does not include online yarn shops). In short, it's takes a lot to wow me. Regardless, I was definitely wowed by this store. Filled with yarns that are surprisingly difficult to find in LA brick and mortar stores such as Alpaca (not Misti Alpaca mind you, just lots of Peruvian Alpaca available in enormous 600 yard hanks), Buffalo Gold (spendy, but beautiful), Inca Organic Cotton (love this), cones of bamboo (yes, cones), perle cotton, tencel and linen, I kept wondering why I hadn't made the trip to visit this establishment prior to this moment. Then my heart went all aflutter upon discovering the enormous amount of spinning fiber and requisite tools occupying the entire right hand side of the store!
You should all be proud of me as I showed some serious restraint in that place. I didn't buy any yarn. Not one piece of string. I know, that's just wrong. However, I have enough yarn to open my own store at the moment, so I just kept my cool. Don't worry though, I did drop quite a bit of cash on the newest member of my spinning clan...
Meet my new beautiful Louet Drum Carder!
This is sister equipment to my Lendrum...
My Hitchhiker...
My itsy bitsy Babe...
And of course, the progenitor of it all, my drop spindle...
I also bought roving. And no, I didn't need any roving, but what can I say? I'm weak.
Jenna left the store with a fairly large alpaca haul (good girl!) and we topped off our shopping extravaganza with chocolate from Ingeborg's and pasties to go from Olsen's. Wallets light and spirits high we made our way back down the coast to West LA. Definitely a wonderful Sunday if there ever was one!
7 comments:
Isn't that the greatest store? Rumor has it they have a huge storage area in the basement that very, very occasionally they will show to visitors. Can you imagine what that must be like?? Total fiber - and fiber toy - heaven.
You'll have to use some of the roving to make the killer bunny on theanticraft.com I made the mistake of showing site to GF. Now I'm going to have to make the Tepes helmet for her.
oh! so completely unfair that these fabulous fiber stores actually exist - and that you get to live by one!!!! ahhh, but the link.... you're forgiven :P lol
Sounds like a spectacular day! I am wanting one of them drum carders. But I will have to wait for a while yet. Maybe if I put it on my Christmas List Santa will bring it to me.
WOW. That's all I can say. Oh, and I'm jealous of your trip. Yea for you!!
oh...makes me miss home! i used to live in Lompoc, and loved loved loved Solvang. lucky you :)
It's a great store and the ladies are so friendly. I was in Solvang last summer and when I saw the store I did a quick turn into it and actually abandoned my poor boyfriend on the sidewalk. He didn't know where I had went and walked down the block before he realized I was gone! I'm jealous of your drum carder and all your spinning wheels - my fate for living in a one-bedroom in NYC - no space!
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