Well, sort of. I don't know if you can call it a yarn crawl if you only go to two stores. However, the yarn I got was special to Portland, so that makes it pretty exciting :) My brother, my VERY-soon-to-be-SIL Jen, and I journeyed east on our voyage.
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| Photo taken by my brother Khoa, who always has his camera handy |
First up was
Yarnia on SE Division. Yarnia was a must on my LYS list because you get to MAKE YOUR OWN YARN. Seriously! The store is full of cones of different colored threads of different fibers, and you pick your own combination of colors and material to create custom-made yarn. They spin it for you onto a cone. Pictured above is my yarn - I chose a strand of teal alpaca, teal wool, dark espresso-brown merino, and brown metallic lurex for a little sparkle and named it Magical Forest in my Ravelry stash, because it looks like a dark, sparkly pine tree. It came out to about $8 for 3oz (not bad!), and I plan to use it for wristwarmers :)
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| Photo from brooklyntweed.net |
Then we journeyed downtown to
Knit Purl on SW Alder and 11th. This stop was a must because Knit Purl is one of the few stores
around the nation to carry
Brooklyn Tweed SHELTER. I've been a longtime fan of Jared Flood of Brooklyn Tweed - his designs are classic and beautiful, and his photography is just wonderful! - and when I found out BT was coming out with its own line of worsted wool, I was absolutely interested. However, I wanted to see it in person before I bought it (even though I bought a shade card, I still want to hold the skeins in my hand, you know?), so this was my first opportunity to do so, and it did NOT disappoint. I bought two skeins in Thistle (pictured left) to make BT's
Romney Kerchief.
I also bought from Knit Purl a skein of
Shibui Knits Silk Cloud in Graphite, this stunning laceweight mohair/silk yarn, perfect for floaty lace things :) None of my local area stores carry Shibui Knits, and I've been wanting lately to make something floaty-lace and fuzzy, so I bought one skein to make Churchmouse's
Mohair Bias Loop, because there was one knit from Silk Cloud in the store, and I thought it would be nice and versatile.
I know it sounds weird to be excited about going yarn shopping, but if you've never been to a yarn store (a REAL, local yarn store, not Michaels or Joann's!), you're missing out! (Even if you don't knit or crochet!) It is an absolutely lovely experience for your senses - the range of colorways you'll find are stunning, and it actually is sooooo nice to walk around and fondle the yarn (which you're encouraged to do!) I'm glad I finally got a chance to hit up a couple of Portland's best LYSes this time around.
