August 28, 2021 – Portland, Oregon

Now that’s a big boat!!!!!

We’ve spent the last week at Reeder Beach RV Park on Sauvie Island located 10 miles outside of Portland, Oregon. It is one of the largest river islands in the country, surrounded by the Willamette and Columbia Rivers. As we drove in and as we’ve explored over the week, we have soaked in the beautiful and peaceful landscape of the island. It is covered in farms where you can pick your own fruits and flowers and enjoy some locally made wines and hard ciders. Some have sheep and goats and there are hiking trails throughout. Our RV park is on a lovely piece of property with apple trees, geese and chickens looking over the Columbia River. We’ve seen sailboats and at least one HUGE ship travel down the river. The hubs and I have definitely enjoyed sitting outside in the shade with the breeze blowing every afternoon – my favorite time of day!

Like Seattle but with more dirt!!!!

Similar to Seattle, Portland and the surrounding enclaves have many many yarn shops! I managed to visit 3 in one day (and didn’t buy a thing, Editor!!) (Ed. Note – Ha! I truly do not believe it!!!!) and two more another day. They all had a very different atmosphere which is great for the area as you can choose to go where you feel most comfortable. They all had tables set up for knit nights and classes and everyone I spoke to was very pleasant! (don’t you just love crafters?!) 😍

Hmmm, that weird!!!!

The first shop I visited was in the St. Johns area – you have to cross the St. Johns Bridge (pictured above) to get there. The bridge is absolutely beautiful and has an interesting history – they began building the bridge one month before the Great Depression and gave many county residents employment during the building process.

Anyway, I visited Weird Sisters and Two Rivers Bookstore. They are located in one space with yarn to the left and books to the right! They have Brown Sheep, Blue Sky Fibers, Spud & Chloe and Lopi, along with some regional yarns, Sea Change Fibers and Thistle & Hart. My regret is not purchasing these fabulous wooden stitch markers of the St. Johns Bridge towers that are exclusive to their store…sigh. (Ed. Note – I told you to do it!!!!)

After leaving St. Johns, I went to Nitro Knitters in Beaverton, Oregon about 15 miles down the road. This shop is holding a trunk show of local yarn dyers, Canon Hand Dyes (which I purchased at the Dallas Fiber Festival years ago) and Dragonfly Fibers – both with beautiful yarns. Nitro also carries other local fibers, such as Candy Skein, NanoStitch Lab and Ryberry, along with Malabrigo, Knitter’s Pride and Cascade. They have a nice large selection to choose from.

From there, I drove to For Yarn’s Sake, also in Beaverton. Unfortunately, I arrived about 5 minutes before closing time so only had 5 minutes to look around (honestly, I was hoping they would let me browse around for about 15 minutes while they finished closing up but that didn’t happen). It is quite a large shop with an even bigger selection than Nitro Knitters but again, only got to walk through rather quickly. So this ended the day I shopped at yarn shops and purchased nothing – I was VERY restrained and wanted to mention this again for my editor! (but I’m still wishing for those stitch markers…)

This is a downtown and over there is a downtown!!!!

The hubs and I went exploring another day and I managed to make sure that Unraveled was on our way 😁. This shop was in what I would consider downtown, actually the Pearl District – even though Portland seems to have “downtown” on both sides of the river, go figure. It was the most interesting one I’ve visited in quite a while – mainly because it was so sparse. They have a very large open space with nice seating and yarn in cubbies around 2 and half sides. It seemed like there were only 5-10 skeins or balls in each cubbie. It was very quiet and I felt like I should grab something before everything disappeared. (Ed. Note – Like a magic trick?!?!?!?!?!?) Two yarns that really caught my attention were Eden Cottage from Canada and Knitting for Olive from Copenhagen – neither of which I have seen before. They both had muted colors in different types of yarn and I kept going back to them after looking around the store. I decided on the Milburn 4 ply in Harvest Gold, 85% Bluefaced Leicester, 15% silk. It will make a lovely and very soft cowl.

It was a nice walk!!!!!

After a little walk around for the hubs, we went several blocks down to Pearl Fiber Arts, another shop in the Pearl District. This shop had a more “homey” feel like I’m used to – it was a bit smaller with yarn hanging everywhere. They carry Universal, Sugar Bush, Shepherd’s Wool, and Bamboo Pop among others but much of her yarn is local – a lot of Alexandra, The Art of Yarn, Duchess of Dyepots, and Fierce Fibers. According to the website, Fierce Fibers has moved all of her currently dyed yarns to Pearl Fiber Arts to get space for her new lines, so the shop had a lot of this yarn. They are beautiful tonal colors. I came home with Warm Kitty, another gold yarn that I’m looking forward to knitting into fingerless mitts! I thoroughly enjoyed visiting all the shops and would have trouble figuring out which one I’d want to hang out in if I lived in the area and trust me, there were more that I didn’t get a chance to even drive by – next time!

I have to admit, I’m not sure what’s going on with the gold theme I have going on…

Yeah, that’s about to come to a screeching halt!!!!

The hubs has done all the driving this week (this is unusual) and it takes about 25-30 minutes to get anywhere, so I’ve had time for knitting while taking in the sights. (Ed. Note – Don’t get used to it!!!!)

I finished two baby bibs and a pair of fingerless mitts that I’m sending off to Little Rock next week. Then I’m getting started on a red ribbon scarf for me. I forgot how much I love smaller projects – they get finished so fast!