To those of you who don't know me personally, I once lived in Portland, OR. I made a lot of friends, and am still friends with a lot of them. Every year, they have a truly epic yarn crawl involving 15-20 (depending) yarn stores in the area (not all of them are necessarily right in PDX proper, but all fairly close). I love their yarn crawl. In fact, it has spoiled me a little in terms of yarn crawls. When I went on the Central Texas yarn crawl, I was surprised by how far apart all the stores were (seriously, as far as 2.5hrs away from where I lived; which is pretty central to the stores) and you had to pay to be a part of it!! Oh, and there were about 1/2 the number of stores involved, also... but I do have to admit, you don't expect a ton of yarn stores in Texas. ;op
In comparison, the furthest store from PDX proper was about 45 min and it's free. This year (and last year) they have been doing a mystery shawl KAL and CAL. I didn't partake last year, and while I won't be going on the yarn crawl itself... I decided to join the mystery KAL! The pre-reqs are two coordinating skeins of fingering weight each roughly 400 yds each. Here are my two:
I've got 2 more repeats of the lace to go, then I will be done with Clue 1, and ready for Clue 2! :oD
In comparison, the furthest store from PDX proper was about 45 min and it's free. This year (and last year) they have been doing a mystery shawl KAL and CAL. I didn't partake last year, and while I won't be going on the yarn crawl itself... I decided to join the mystery KAL! The pre-reqs are two coordinating skeins of fingering weight each roughly 400 yds each. Here are my two:
I actually already had the pinky-orange variegated in my stash. It is Abstract Fibers in what they now call Alex (50/50 merino/tencel). While I had lost the yarn band, I'm fairly certain it's this color based off of pictures. The blue is by Alexandra's Crafts in Baby Silver Falls (60/30/10 merino/bamboo/nylon; now discontinued) in the colorway "Navy." I purchased the Alexandra's from my favorite PDX LYS, Pearl Fiber Arts. The store owner is so nice, and does concierge shopping. Find Pearl Fiber Arts on Facebook! It's so easy. I sent her a picture of my yarn, and told her I was having trouble finding a match b/c of the fiber content. She looked, and found 4 different appropriate colors, took a picture of them, and let me choose. Both Alexandra's and Abstract Fibers are local PDX dyers, so I think this will be a very appropriate shawl for the PDX yarn crawl. If only I could go! :o)
Now, Alex used to be called Mighty Sock, and it also used to have 380yds/skein based on research I've done. I know I have the Mighty Sock instead of the Alex, so I'm a little worried about running out of yarn. So, I've swapped for smaller needles, and I'm loving the stitch definition I'm getting even out of a variegated yarn! I think this will work out well: