Exploring Sarasota's Nooks and Neighborhoods

Sarasota, FL        High:  75       Low:   61

Back to more normal temperatures....Everybody here seems relieved about that...Sparky enjoyed the short cool down, and got out and biked quite a bit today...She had planned to go to Whole Foods downtown to check it out, but got lost. Her navigational best bud, Eldy, was not along for the ride today.  Downtown Sarasota has some interesting twisty, angled, streets in the heart of old downtown Sarasota, so it was EASY for Sparky to get lost!

But, she managed to find a unique yarn/antiques shop called Picasso Moon...A delightful shop filled to every nook, cranny, and corner with handspun  ART YARNS. The best way Sparky can describe this store is, it's a fiber lover's paradise---all kinds of different combinations of  thick, thin wool, nylon, cashmere, every possible type of yarn that is mostly hand spun by the owner, Debra Lambert. Art yarns are not your usual sock and sweater yarn, no siree! They are fibers intertwined with specialty yarns and not the easiest to make. Sparky wishes she had a different camera with her today to better capture the color and textures of the yarns, but all she had was her iphone today.

And the owner LOVES owls--they were all over the place! After browsing this wonderful, kind of quirky, funky yarn shop and talking to Debra, Sparky told her she was enthralled with Debra's owls. Debra graciously shared the pattern with Sparky, free of charge. What a nice lady! Thank you, Debra.

Don't know about you, but Sparky thinks anybody who still shears sheep, dyes and spins their own yarns is an AWESOME crafter. Nothing like keeping the old fiber traditions alive. While Sparky was in the shop, she heard Debra offer to spin a customer's fiber choice into yarn suitable for knitting. Cool!

This yarn looks sort of ethereal, don't you think? That's "heavenly" in yarn talk. :-)

She even had a triangle loom on the wall which looked really interesting. (Sorry, fellas, not much in here for you today....)

Sparky was off still trying to find the street that houses the Whole Foods Store. But apparently, she headed away from the store and ended up in a little historic district of Sarasota called Burns Square. There were cool little shops here, but it wasn't as developed as the major boutique shopping area towards the waterfront and center business district. Sparky enjoyed looking around all the same....


Here's something unusual, a store called Nessentials. Sparky peeked in and saw a bunch of marionettes. Didn't know there was still a market for those!






Sparky saw a cool BBQ joint called Nancy's BBQ....Will have to check out "Yelp" to see how it's rated. It had a very cool vibe about it with the antique tractor sitting right outside....If you are not familiar with the app Yelp, it's a great referral app for restaurants, businesses, bike repair places, everything related to the area you are in. We use it a lot. Sparky even writes reviews sometimes on Yelp to help spread the word about the good, the bad and the ugly for local stuff when we are out and about.

And this store had quite the interesting name...specializing in artisan and vintage goods...

More cool mosaics in the sidewalk....

Sparky thought this Burns Square was an interesting part of town, adding yet another dimension to the city of Sarasota.....

Tomorrow we meet up with the Laubenthals, of Travels with Gunther and Kara....It's always great to meet fellow travelers and bloggers. Looking forward to it!

See you later.....

OH! almost forgot...I have to say I'm sorry to all our readers, but I am going to have to block "Anonymous" comments. There are at least ten to twenty that all of a sudden are coming through every day, and I hope that by blocking them for awhile, they will stop showing up!  They are 99% spam, so I need to do something! We will try that temporarily and see if it helps. Thanks for understanding, those of you who are genuine and real anonymous readers.    Jeannie     a.k.a "Sparky"