Portland

Well, I got an unexpected day off today, the house is clean, and I had to frog my knitting project to go down a needle size (*grumble grumble...swatching, I know...grumble grumble*), so let's write a blog post, eh?

We're married! Yay! It's honestly not that much different than it has been for the last 5 years. I'll get to the wedding in a future post (the dress, most importantly, I'm not the kind of girl to bombard everyone with wedding pictures, but I can't not share the knitted dress). Today, let's talk about what I brought home from our honeymoon trip:

Yarn, of course! Lots and lots of it, haha. We drove from my hometown in Idaho to the Oregon coast (another future blog post) and ended up in Portland, where I met some fantastic Ravelers who took me on a mini yarn-shop-hop. I left with all of this scrumptious wonderful stuff! At first I had planned to buy colors that would remind me of my trip. Then I decided local dyers would be a good choice. And then I went off the rails altogether.

We went to three yarn shops, all gorgeous and all brimming with the most amazing yarns. First stop was Twisted. I was going to be good and buy for my queue if I bought anything. The first thing I bought was this Hazel Knits Artisan Sock in Sagebrush. I've heard people talk about it, the color was gorgeous and reminded me of the ocean, it was soft, would work for a sock pattern I've been wanting to make. Done. I should have bought the amazing local stuff they had, but I couldn't match it to a pattern and I couldn't choose my favorite colorway. :P I'm going to have to order it, though, because now I feel I can't live without it, haha. I'm still very pleased with my regional buy, though.

Next, at Happy Knits, I scooped up some Black Trillium Fibres Merilon Sock in Hedwig because it was local, gorgeous, Harry Potter-related (I was with HPKCHCers), kinda reminded me of the Oregon fog and rocks I saw a lot of, and would make John some happy socks (to distract him from the other yarn I was buying).

Finally, we stopped at Yarntastic. There was a sale on my favorite yarns AND a locally-dyed yarn in a Harry Potter-related colorway dyed exclusively for this shop, so I did a bit of both: a sweater quantity of Rowan Felted Tweed for Stasis (I mean right?) and the Potions Master sock yarn from Nerd Girl. Yum!

Some of you will say I shopped with great restraint. Some of you will think I went a bit overboard. I'm at peace (though there was a moment trying to cram it all into the suitcase where I was not). Vacation yarn is a must, I think. And when I've got friends showing me the best of the best, well...who can say no?

I had a fantastic time meeting these ladies and hanging out with them for a day. I really loved Portland and would love to go back. I think there are about 30 more yarn shops I have to visit, so I just have to visit again. :)