I went yarn crawling with Sharon and Cathy from Lantern Moon on Friday. It was day one of the Portland Yarn Crawl, and we were game for hitting as many stores as we could do in one day. We knew we wouldn’t hit all 20!
We started at Close Knit, because it’s close! The shop was hopping, with lots of inspirational model knits, well displayed, and lots of happy yarn crawlers. Sharon was eyeing this pretty skein of yarn with Cathy.
Ann posed with some goodies from the raffle basket. 
And owner Sally was working away behind the counter.
We met Susan, from Texas, who was visiting her friend Linda here. She fell in love with our Sapa messenger bag; I think it went home with her! These bags are made in Sapa, a town in a mountainous area in the northern part of Vietnam. The handwork on these bags is representative of the textiles unique to this region. The Sapa bags are part of Lantern Moon’s Heritage Textiles Program. Lantern Moon’s efforts to establish business relationships there enables these skills to continue to be passed from generation to generation.
Our next stop was at the Naked Sheep Knit Shop. We found Brad knitting with some very large Lantern Moon needles!
Brad is a local artist, and the designer of the Portland Yarn Crawl logo. His wife Cheri owns Naked Sheep. Brad is also in charge of the yarnbombing outside the shop. (Check out their cool car, too!)
We saw some of the Lantern Moon sheep here.
After lunch, we made our way to Happy Knits. Sarah has a very lovely space, full of beautiful yarn. I fell in love with her cabled shawl. It’s Caireen from Knitty, and this version is made in MadelineTosh Pashmina.
I thought it was so lovely, I bought the purple Pashmina that Sarah is holding…there may be a Caireen in my future.
From there we went down the street to Yarn Garden. Yarn Garden was the first LYS to carry our iconic rice basket when Lantern Moon started 10 years ago. They still carry them.
I met Annie, who blogs for Yarn Garden. She’s owner Jo’s daughter, and very charming.
Sharon bought yarn for a very cool vest with Tahki yarn. She’s completely smitten with cables, and now she’ll be making more.
By this time, we knew we wouldn’t be making it out to the westside shops that were in our original game plan. We headed south, but afternoon traffic was troublesome, so we abandoned our amended plan and headed straight to Pico Accuardi Dyeworks. We didn’t want to miss their chocolate truffle and wine reception!
Stevanie and Deb were fabulous hosts. This is the first time I’ve seen their new space. Very cute!
Lorajean (Knitted Wit) shares space with Pico Accuardi, and she was there, too. She has a very cool new project, Community Supported Yarn/Fiber. It’s a lot like a CSA farm relationship, where you support a farmer and receive produce, except it’s yarn and fiber. What’s not to like?
Teri and Lorajean got some winding done…
We met up with Phyllis Howe, organizer of the yarn crawl. It was sweet to meet her in person! She and Sharon talked knitting.
And that’s what we managed to pack into one Friday. I went yarn crawling on my own on Saturday. If you want more yarn crawl report, come see me on PDXKnitterati.com. Looking forward to doing more next year…
Did you crawl?
In the top picture, is that an i-cord necklace? I think this may be what I do with one of my un-spoken-for balls of yarn! A good commuting project, perhaps.
It’s not quite i-cord, but it’s very cool! It’s called sev(en) circle, and it’s a free pattern by Kirsten Johnstone. You can get it on ravelry:
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sevencircle
wow, endless amounts of beautiful things to see (and touch;)) on the crawl! So glad to have caught of glimpse of Caireen, too— there’s a skein of Pashmina in my stash I needs to do sumthin’ with….
Just be aware that the one skein won’t quite make it as written! Apparently Lise, the knitter, used 1.2 skeins, but she said that I might take out a few rows at the bottom. (It’s in my Friday PDXKnitterati blog post, which isn’t up yet. Tomorrow.) Sounds risky. But the same designer also has the Annis shawl on Knitty, which is also lovely. I’m not sure if there’s enough for that, either, but it’s simple and pretty! http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEss10/PATTannis.php
[...] that I read is the Lantern Moon blog (yes, the folks with the adorable sheep measuring tapes), today I read about a Community Supported Yarn/Fiber program taking place this summer. (I also was inspired [...]
looks like you all had a nice crawl! I only made it to Happy Knits as I had a very busy weekend. I love it there, Sarah has made it a lovely place to hang out with friends and knit ~ which is what our group does every Tuesday afternoon!