My mom and I went on The Best Little Yarn Crawl in Texas this past Saturday, and we had a BLAST! This is the seventh year for the crawl, but it’s the first time that my mother and I have had a chance to go. In the past, the crawl has been scheduled for one weekend, but this time, the crawl runs for two full weeks. You can sign up for the crawl online. The cost is $10 and it allows you a discount on a particular selection of yarns at each of the participating stores. You also get to register at each store for the store prize. A passport is given to you, in which you have it stamped at each store you visit. At the end of the crawl, if you have visited all the stores and have your passport completely full of stamps, then you turn it in for the jackpot drawing, worth $500 in prizes! We woke up really early on the day of the crawl, because he were driving from Houston to Austin and wanted to be at the first store at 8AM, when they opened.  All the stores were open from 8AM to 8PM especially for the crawl. The The Knittting Nest, located at 8708 S. Congress Avenue in Austin, TX was our first stop. We arrived about 30 minutes later than planned, but that was OK. I believe we might have been their first customers, but the store was full of people when we left. We received our passports and received our first stamp of the day. We put our name in for the store drawing and received our free patterns and were off to shopping. We both picked out a Bronotta Yarn. Mine was the KandyKorn colorway. Below are some pictures of us at Knitting in the Nest. 
Second stop was to Hill Country Weavers, located at 1701 S. Congress Avenue in Austin, TX. Some ladies on Raverly had told me that this was a great store, and right they were! This store was filled with yarn from floor to ceiling. Talk about eye candy! I immediately spotted some pretty pottery yarn bowls. I’ve been wanting a yarn bowl forever. My mother had never seen them and she fell in love with them too. She insisted that I pick one, and she bought us both one. Mine is a dark purple with a little bit of muted pink on the top. Mom’s bowl is green stripe. Gorgeous bowls! We also purchased yarn, of course. I had planned to purchase mostly Texas yarns on the crawl, but fell in love with some Hedgehog Fibers Yarn, from Cork, Ireland. Beautiful yarn, both soft and vibrant in color. 
Third stop was to The Gauge, located at 5406 Parkcrest Drive in Austin, TX. This was one of the smaller stores we visited, but definitely work the stop because we got to meet the dyer of DizzyLettuce. She was a super sweet lady and her yarns were beautiful. And she’s from Texas! Mom and I both purchased some DizzyLettuce Yarn. I bought two skeins. The first was a dark deep red/maroon, and I plan to make a hat. The other was a light weight fingering called Speckled BIrd. I almost passed up the Speckled Bird because I knew I had more shopping to do during the day, but decided if I didn’t buy it, I’d be sorry and be thinking of it the rest of the day, so I weakened and it went home with me. 
Next, we decided to make our fourth stop the Happy Ewe, located at 18360 FM 1431 in Jonestown, TX. I’ve lived in Texas all my life, but I had never heard of Jonestown. Jonestown was about 20-30 minutes north of The Gauge. It’s out on a windy, hilly road and I passed it up and had to turn around. I loved looking in this store. They had some really cool spinning wheels, roving, yarn, wicker baskets, etc. I found some Wooly Wonka Yarn, which I had heard of, but had not seen. This dyer is from New Mexico and the yarn was fantastic. I bought two skeins, one to keep and one to give a way as a prize for my video podcast. (So if you are interested, you can sign up to win the yarn on the Me And My Dog And Some Yarn Video Podcast Group on Raverly). The winner will be announced next Sunday night during Episode # 4, so stay tuned. 
I had to take a picture of these black horses, since my user name on Raverly is BlackHorse. 🙂 
After shopping at four yarn stores, we were famished! We decided to check out Yelp to see what was around, and we saw that we were close to Mi Madre and it had very good reviews. We drove around the block twice to try and find a parking, but had to finally park about a block away and walk.  The food was excellent!  The chips were not greasy at all and in my opinon had the right thickness. The salsa was spicy… just like I like it. We ordered the Chicken Burrito and our waiter said they were big enough to share, so we decided to spilt one.  It was filled with shredded chicken, black beans, avocado, lettuce and rice. The green sauce they served on the side was super spicy, so we passed on it. I’m from Texas and I love spicy, but man was it hot! My hubby would have loved it. Anyways, we had a wonderful lunch. 
At lunch we planned the rest of our day and decided we would visit Old Oak Ranch. I’m so thankful to the lady we were talking to in Hill Country Weavers. She suggested this store and boy she was not wrong. This was the BEST store we visited! They had live alpacas, which quickly won my vote for best store!!! LOL This store is located at 601 Old Oak Ranch Rd in Wimberley, TX. As we were driving down the back roads of Texas, passing pastures of cattle and cactus, we were thinking that there was no way a yarn store could be out in the country. Then we came upon it! The gate was so narrow that only one car could enter or exit at a time. As we drove in the gate, we saw them… ALPACAS! We immediately got so excited. We couldn’t wait to park and check out the store and the alpacas. Inside the store, as we walked in the door, we spotted a basket of small stuffed alpacas. Mom bought us both one. At this store, I bought some Old Oak Ranch Alpaca yarn and I plan to knit an infinity cowl. After shopping in the store, we took a walk through the garden and to pet some alpaca. We took some pictures along the way. 
After leaving Old Oak Ranch, we stopped at a pie place in Kyle, TX. We picked up small blueberry pies for our hubbies.
Heading down HWY 290, it started raining, then we saw a rainbow.
But our day was not over. We still had one more stop. Last stop was the Yarnorama, located at 130 Gonzales Street, in Paige, TX. This shop was really neat. They had two angora rabbits in cages. The man told us that one was named Coco and the other was called Channel. The store had weaving machines and spinning wheels and lots of roving. I almost purchased some roving in the colorway “Blue Bonnets”, which is the Texas state flower. It was very true to the colors of Blue Bonnets. Since I don’t spin, I passed it up, but I plan to go back and purchase it in a month or so. I did buy some FiberObsessions yarn in a silver colorway. It has sparkles in it and is very pretty. After this stop we headed home. We had an AWESOME day!!! We were very blessed to have such a wonderful day.
This is my Mom’s stash.
And this is mine.
Tags: alpaca, blackhorse, happy ewe, hill country weavers, knitter, knitting, knitting nest, MeAndMyDogAndSomeYarn, old oak ranch, Texas, yarn, yarn crawl, yarnorama
Me and My Dog and Some Yarn 