My little family and I were recently in Alicante, Spain. It was our first holiday abroad since having our little girl nearly 4 years ago and it was fantastic! We had such a wonderful time and were able to resurrect some old holiday traditions that my husband and I had when we used to travel relatively often, such as visiting a local yarn store and finding some local yarn treasure for me to take home and knit up as memories of the holiday.
After a quick Google search I found a couple of yarn stores in Alicante, but Más que Lanas stood out. It was well reviewed and perfectly located for the rest of our day's plans so off we headed.
It was so much fun to have my little girl in tow for this adventure, one I have had in the many different places we visited before her arrival over many different years. She was just as engaged as we were, navigating our way down the old quarter streets, trying to find this lovely, little local yarn store.
As with all those times before, my husband waited outside while I went in to have an explore, but this time my enthusiastic little girl was holding my hand and wanted to share in my discoveries.
Together we chatted in broken Spanish and English to the shop assistant who kindly pointed out where I could find the Spanish brands of yarn and where some of her favourites were to be found.
I quickly landed on some beautiful pink and purple Valeria yarn (65% wool and 35% Alpaca), made in Spain and luckily for me, on sale! I snapped up the last remaining 3 skeins (a skein is a twisted loop of yarn) with a plan to knit them into an autumn/winter hat and scarf set for myself.
The best way to conjure up memories of warmer times on cold days!
I then asked my daughter to help me find some yarn she would like me to knit a winter hat for her with. With some gentle guidance away from the 100% acrylics on offer (I am a yarn snob and love a natural, sustainable fibre in my knitting hands), we settled on a bright and fun yarn called Pluton from Spanish brand Katia.
The yarn she chose is a blend of acrylic, cotton, alpaca and wool so it felt like everyone's preferences were acknowledged.
Once at the till I spotted some bright and colourful stitch markers which I couldn't resist so they got added in to the bag of knitting treats too.
Más que Lanas was a lovely local knitting store, clean, bright with well displayed yarn for all tastes and projects. There wasn't a big range of hand or kettle dyed style yarn (my achilles heel) but there may not be many local yarn dyers to stock from. The shop assistant was friendly and welcoming and clearly enamoured with my daughter's enthusiasm to share the experience with me.
The store, although small, has a wide range of Katia yarns, a very successful Spanish yarn company which can be found across Europe but not with as many different types as I saw in Más que Lanas. I also spotted ribbons and embroidery threads.
With the store explored and yarn safely paid for and bagged up, we headed back out into the sun, to my husband and continued our day together exploring Alicante. It was wonderful to return to a holiday experience I love, finding and visiting a local yarn store but even better to do it with my little girl, hand in hand.
Now I need to actually knit up the hats!
If you visit Más que Lanas in Alicante, do let me know what yarn treasures you found! And of course, should you fancy learning to knit or learning more about yarn, you will find all the resources, tutorials and guides right here at learntoknitonline for you.
Happy Knitting!
Ax