Portland Day Two

It has been a long time since my last post. Here is the second installment of my trip to Portland Oregon last weekend.

On April 13th we visited a multitude of stores! For those of you that don't know me - I am a marathon shopper. I can shop for HOURS! Sandy found this out. I could have even done more. I can go and go - maybe it is growing up with 6 sisters?

We went to the Yarn Garden. This was one of my favorite shops in the Portland area. They had an amazing selection of yarns. Their "Sipperie" was comfortable and had a somewhat homey feel to it. The barista could have been friendlier but it did not detract from the overall experience.

I bought some Jade Saphire 100% cashmere lace yarn here. Yummy! My intention is to pick out a shawl from Victorian Lace today to do...someday.

A cute but very small shop is called Mabels's Cafe and Knittery. There was a woman there spinning and she was having coffee with a couple friends that were knitting. The place was a bit too small and dark for a good place to gather for knitting but it was cute.

I got a screaming deal on some Bartlett Yarn-20% off (cost $28 for the yarn) for a felted Noni bag I want to knit. The "traditional" Noni bags are cute but are just a little 'too much' for me, personally. Nora has come out with a new style that is much more to my liking. The yarn has a lot of depth to it that you can't see from the photo. There are bits of yellow, plue, purplein the deep rose color.

Where else did we go? We went to Abundant Yarn & Dyeworks. I had high hopes for this place but quite honestly it was a bit of a disappointment. They had a large space but it there was no continuity. They don't have many books at all which seems strange for such a large shop. The people were nice but I didn't find they did not go out of their way to assist you. I inquired about the Schact Matchess they had displayed and she basically said I should buy it from them because I'd get 10% off for the remainder of the year on everything in the store. Later Sandy heard her talking to another customer saying that the year discount ends in June. It is not a rolling annual thing. I'd basically be getting a 10% off for just over a month. Nice. NOT! I don't have any photos of this place because...well I doubt I'd go back there....but! If you need a huge selection of Cascade 220 - they probably have every color there!

Next place - LINT! Cute shop with cute things there. They have a good selection of books and yarn. The woman working there was very helpful. They also had a very comfortable seating area with a couch and a couple of cozy chairs so you could sit and knit or browse their book selection.

I saw this cabled hat made out of Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk that I really wanted to knit. They had the color I wanted but only two skeins and that hat takes 3. I looked all around at all the shops the rest of the trip and didn't find the color. I did find it on-line at WEBS. It is a discontinued color so it was on sale. How 'bout that? Where else did we go? The Naked Sheep.

Sandy got some fun yarn that is sort of like fabric and you knit in the fabric/yarn and it makes like a ruffly scarf. It was 40% off! I wasn't tempted by anything there. They too had a good selection of yarns and had a couch area for sitting and knitting. In fact in many of the shops we visited there was either a cafe' or a couch/cozy sitting area which many shops in Seattle lack.

After all that yarn crawling, we came back to the Benson for a bit to take a breather. Then we went out to dinner to this crepe place called Le Happy. Yes, we were happy! They have yummy food here and there is usually a waiting line. A popular place.

Sandy's daugher, Katie, has a friend Becca who joined us for dinner. As we were talking about dessert crepes she asks us if we have ever been to Voodoo Donuts? We were like 'what is voodoo donuts?' Its a very famous place. I think we went over there around 11pm and it was packed - line out the door! It was hard to find a parking space! Oh this place is a crack up! The donuts they have can't be listed on my blog but thing in terms of the erotic bakery. They even had this maple bar topped with bacon! what the? Becca said it was good! She said she needed a little protein to go with her sugar high!

The menu:
We ended the evening on that note. Voodoo donuts!

Next Entry - Day three.