Ohhhhhhh, portland!

I am surprised I can still walk after our Invasion of NW Portland yesterday. Mrs. H arrived at my house just before 10am, and I didn’t get home until 4pm. We covered some ground! I can’t even remember all the places we went.
The first place we visited was Rose City Textiles. RCT specializes in outdoor fabric, and there is so much of it that it is really quite overwhelming. Annette, who manages the storefront, is very knowledgeable and helpful and very enthusiastic, so she makes you just want to buy everything in the store. Check out just one little corner of the polarfleece section (I think I showed a similar photo from my last trip there, but what can I say, I find polarfleece to be photogenic):
rct.jpg
I know, CRAZY. Mrs. H and I both ended up buying a bunch of fabric, which probably wasn’t the smartest thing, since we had to lug it around for the rest of the day.
LARGE TEXT SECTION AHEAD (sorry I didn’t take more photos):
[I’m not going to include links here because I am feeling too lazy to look them all up.] Okay, so then we wandered around 23rd Avenue, which is crammed full of boutiques and such, before heading down into the Pearl District. We stopped at KnitKnot studio, a cute little yarn shop, then headed to Anthropologie, Whole Foods (where we got samples of cheese and bread), Peet’s Coffee, then stopped at Mio Gelato for a lunch of … gelato!! I had grapefruit (mmmmmm) and Mrs. H had blackberry. We popped into Powell’s for a minute then went to Daisy Kingdom, which is going out of business and having a giant sale. After that we went to a great decorator fabric store, the Whole 9 Yards, and an amazing paper goods store, Oblation Papers, which made me REALLY want my own letterpress setup (as opposed to just wanting one before). I think our last stop was Lint, a great yarn store that always has a big bowl of candy at the front counter.
Here’s the one skein of yarn I got at Lint plus the fabrics I acquired at RCT:
rct fab.jpg
The brightly colored ones are lycra (well, the cartoon one isn’t really lycra, because it’s not stretchy) and will most likely become running tops and/or tights. The black stuff on the right is exo skin, this amazing high tech fabric that feels rubbery on one side and fleecy on the other. I’m going to make Peter a rash guard (a surfing thing, not something for strange rashes) out of it. I think I have to go back to get the wasabi color so I can make myself a little jacket. The yarn is Marvelous Mohair by Steadfast Fibers in Bonners Ferry, ID. It’s going to be the grass for the mohair vest with flowers from Girly Knits, a Japanese knitting magazine.
Okay, the day wasn’t over yet! Yesterday evening my friend Taya and I went to Powell’s Books for Cooks to hear Christopher Kimball, the editor of Cook’s Illustrated. He was very charming and funny and yes, sporting a bowtie! Afterwards we had dinner at a great Lebanese restaurant.

This entry was posted in sewing. Bookmark the permalink.

14 Responses to Ohhhhhhh, portland!

  1. claudia says:

    I’m noticing the limey correlation between the skein, the fabric and the banner on these comments. Hmmmm. 🙂

  2. carolyn says:

    your brother is right – you aren’t staying home with dad at all! 🙂

  3. lisa c says:

    i was at the powell’s talk last night too! it was great, i loved his quiz of food facts…

  4. Eklectika says:

    Heh – it looks like She-Hulk fabric – how fun!

  5. stinkerbell says:

    oh now I want me a whole foods. They have a cranberry, coconut chocolate chip cookie (vegan to kick it off) and FRUIT LEATHER… drools 🙂

  6. Jan says:

    Sounds like the PERFECT DAY to me!!

  7. Silvia says:

    Oh what a fine day, and a stop at Peets is too funny for me…Love the fabric you bought, and you BETTER go back and get the wasabi colored stuff for you. You don’t want a rash either, do you?

  8. gaile says:

    what a fabulous day! I am green (lime, of course) with envy!! how on earth did you sustain yourselves on just gelato!? oh wait, that’s why you stopped at lint, right? for candy!?

  9. Rachael says:

    You always make Portland sound, so…. exotic. I wanna go there and buy lime things!

  10. Amber says:

    It’s too bad they don’t have that exo stuff on the site, it sounds really cool! I’ll have to try to find it around here…

  11. becky says:

    I keep meaning to go to RCT. How was the sale section?

  12. Shetha says:

    Daisy Kingdom? Going out of business?? Big sale??? aRGHHHH — maybe I can actually afford their stuff, then! Perhaps I can finally buy the fabric for the living room curtains… if only! Thanks for the heads up! Glad you had a fantastic time 🙂

  13. Sandeey says:

    I *love* Rose City Textiles! My friend used to work there and I used to visit her just to drool over all the fabric (just out of college & too poor to buy…arrggg)!

  14. olivia says:

    Man, I love that store! I used to go there,with Mickey Mouse, but we broke up a while ago when I bought a cat.

Comments are closed.