Wow, has it really managed to be 3 weeks since the last update. >.< It's been a whirlwind of activity over here. Some of which I'll finally be able to talk about soon. But first off, I'd like to talk about one of the fun weekends I had earlier this month, when my mom visited. :o)
There we are! My mom is wearing one of the numerous Swirl sweaters she's made. We are aboard Amtrak about to ride from Seattle to Portland for a yarn crawl! This crawl is pretty big, there were 95 official registered people making the crawl! I met some very fun people riding that train down, despite some drowsiness from having to get up before 6am to catch the train. ;o)
We had joined a small group of people who have gone on this crawl before, and they had a gameplan going. We started off at Twisted, where I always seem to end up drooling over the Quince and Co (especially since Seattle's nearest retailer seems to be Tolt, which isn't super close to me...) and also the Republic of Wool (pic below).
After that we stopped for lunch, then headed over to Happy Knits. Lunch was super yummy, and I felt that maybe I should have been a bit more adventurous with my meal, as everyone else's looked more exciting than my own. However, it was still delish, so I shouldn't really complain.
At Happy Knits, I was excited to see the two current issues of magazines that I have patterns in sitting out on display! :oD I did end up buying some things here, but that'll be in the wrap up photo at the end.
Our next stop was Pearl Fiber Arts, which is a store near and dear to me. For the crawl, Cindy had three trunk shows going! She had Stacey of Thoroughly Thwacked (of whom I worked with for Paulette), Grace of Graces Cases (I love her bags and cases! So cute, and very well made.), and Tim from Blind Coffee Roasters (yes, coffeeee!). I actually used to go to a knit night with Cindy and Grace back when I lived out in the PDX area, and Stacey joined the group towards when I was leaving, so it was really great to see them all again!
It had been a pretty busy day, so we closed it down by getting some grub at Roxy's in downtown PDX.
We did stay the night, so the next day we managed to stop in to Dublin Bay, where I managed to forget to take any pics... and then ran back to Twisted for a second purchase that we didn't want to miss out on, in the end. All in all, it was pretty fun, then we headed back.
Soooo, here are the total purchases! Starting at the top: some Madelinetosh that was on clearance at Happy Knits, Jamieson Spindrift in a bright pink that I plan on matching with a neutral at work, 4 Gumballs by Knitted Wit, Manos Alegria in this gorgeous neon variegate, Graces Cases bag, StitchJones Titanium Sock in Peacocky, Republic of Wool, Thoroughly Thwacked True, Black Trillium, Tell Tale Yarns Tidal Twinkle (DK sparkle yarn, what??), and Blue Moon Fiber Arts Silky Victoria (enough to make a sweater, yay!). Whew, it seems like even more yarn when it's laid out and broken down like that!
This was a fun way to start my mom's visit. Next round, I'll talk about the second mini yarn crawl we took, unofficially, the next day. ;o)