Last weekend, Jim and I took a drive northward to the Portland area to check out shopping and other goodness.  I convinced Jim that since we were close, we should stop Abundant Yarn and Dyeworks.  I was looking for more fiber, since I’ve steadily been spinning up the corriedale that came with my wheel.  The parking lot was packed, and there was no place to park, so Jim dropped me off and told me to call him when I was ready.

As soon as I walked in the door, the fiber area was just to my right.  There was fiber from a few major name yarn dyers, such as Lorna’s Laces and Ironstone.  However, most of the fiber was from smaller name dyers that I had not heard of (or maybe just because I haven’t really shopped fiber before).

I was looking for some fiber to play with.  I want to see a variety of colors on my wheel, so I didn’t want to focus spinning another pound of one color.  That meant that the giant bags of fiber were out of consideration.  In the smaller quantities, there was really only one color that spoke to me, the purple braid centered in the photo below.  However, it was corriedale.  Since the pound I’ve been working on was corriedale, I was looking to try a new fiber.  While I really wanted to come home with new fiber, I ended up walking out empty handed.

After the quick visit to the yarn store, Jim and I decided to take a leisurely drive home through some areas we had not been to.  We got off of I-5 and drove down the eastern side of the highway.  When we got to Silverton, we realized that it looked like a quaint little town, so we stopped to walk around and check out the downtown.  We parked the car on the street, and walked back into town.  As we walked, we passed the window below.

Invest in Socks, not stocks?  A clothesline full of socks in the window?  It wasn’t until we had walked pass that my brain actually processed – those are handknit socks!  A quick look in the window, and sure enough, it was a yarn store.  I grabbed Jim and headed back to the entrance of the store.

The Purl District was a cute little store.  They carried a mix of both yarn and sewing equipment, but no spinning fiber.  Since my focus of the day was fiber, I only glanced at some of the yarn they carried.  However, I did notice that they had a display of yarn from Habu Textiles and some from Mission Falls.  I also was stopped by some alpaca yarn from Silver Falls Alpaca that I remembered from Oregon Flock and Fiber this summer.

Unfortunately, I came home empty handed.  Maybe Santa will bring me some spinning fiber soon.