
Nostalgic decor, Oui Presse, Portland, Oregon.
A HUGE thank you to everyone who participated in the giveaway in my Ravelry group!! It was so much fun, and I appreciate everyone who dropped by, whether it was just for a quick “hello” or to stick around and chat and get to know us a little better!
Congrats to Ravelry user Kepanie, winner of the grand prize! Here’s her swag! I had sooooooo much fun choosing these wonderful yarns and knitting notions at the 2016 Rose City Yarn Crawl.
Gathersnomoss won a mini-giveaway for these Gobstoppers:
And heatherg7 snagged these Unicorn Tails:
Congrats Becky and Heather!!!
A great time was had by all and I hope you will join us for one of our next great events! Coming soon: a fantastic summery swap – sign-ups most likely will start in May – and the Ravellenic Games in August – a Ravelry-wide event, with knitting all during the Olympics, (virtual) medals, fun competition (mostly with yourself) and, of course, in my group, prizes!!!
Hi everyone! The giveaway in my Ravelry group is still going strong. There are mini-giveaways going on until we reach 5,000 posts in The Cafe thread. Current post count: 4,854.
When we reach 5,000 posts, I’ll choose the winner using a random number generator for this prize:
I wrote all about the lovely yarn and goodies here: Giveaway Details.
In the meantime, I am giving away smaller goodies that I purchased during the Rose City Yarn Crawl.
Two terrific Gobstoppers, mini-skeins of worsted weight yarn by the Knitted Wit. Soon I’ll randomly choose a winner for this mini-giveaway and then will start the next mini-giveaway. Come on over to The Cafe and join in!
Mini-giveaway 1
Won by Ravelry user Kepanie. She wrote about it in this post on her blog: Wooly Cakes and Wooden Spoons.
Mini-giveaway 2
Just in time for Easter, this See’s Easter Treasure Egg was won by Ravelry user stamura.
Mini-giveaway 3
These awesome Knitted Wit Gumballs, mini skeins of yummy yarn, were won by Ravelry user QueenKally.
Mini-giveaway 4
A wonderful project bag from Happy Knits. Adorbs! Won by Ravelry user PLC1.
Mini-giveaway 5
Awesome and amazing buttons from One of a Kind Buttons. We discussed it in the group and we think the first one belongs on a mug cozy. Won by Rav user saminar.
I hope you will come check out the group, the thread and the giveaway if you are interested. We love to chat about knitting, yarn, and life in general, and we love to have new knitting friends join in the fun.
Hello dear knitters! This giveaway is long over, but the beautiful yarns and products are still lovely and worth reading about..
All of these lovelies were purchased last weekend at the Rose City Yarn Crawl. It was so much fun shopping for locally made fiber products. The Pacific Northwest truly has a strong creative community, and it is a joy to share a little bit of that with you.
My only goal while shopping the Yarn Crawl was to find skeins of yarn that caught my eye…oh, and I was looking for yarn in a PDX Carpet colorway. The first store I went to was Twisted, and right away I found it. Score!!
I love this yarn! It’s the yarn I used (in Golden Delicious) for my Metolius River Mitts. It is amazingly sproingy, works up wonderfully, and comes in terrific colorways. I love how this colorway picks up the colors in the original PDX Carpet.
100% Superwash Merino, 4 ounces, 380 yards, in PDX Carpet. Purchased at Twisted.
This was purchased earlier, but inspired the theme of this giveaway grand prize. Interested in the PDX Carpet iconic design? Read here.
Lovely cable needles made in Eugene.
This is lovely yarn. I bought a similar skein for myself, in a slightly less blue-toned colorway, and I can’t wait to see how it works up.
100% Superwash Merino, 100 grams, 380 yards in a one of a kind colorway. Purchased at Happy Knits.
I have heard whispers about this yarn. I have heard people waxing rhapsodic about it. It is truly, truly, lovely. The colorways have depth and the bases have a very pleasing hand.
4-ply fingering weight, 100 grams, 463 yds, 75% Superwash Merino/25% nylon in Glacier. Purchased at Close Knit.
I was fortunate to make it to the One of a Kind trunk show at the Knitting Bee. Artist Candace Wilson designs these lovely buttons, and I got to chat with her for awhile. Her story is great, as are her buttons! This is the one I chose:
This yarn is just stunning. It is shimmery and just plain gorgeous! Truly exquisitely crafted.
Sockweight, 60% Superwash Merino/20% Silk/20% Yak, 3.5 oz., 400 yds in the colorway Abyss. Purchased at the Knitting Bee .
Thank you for your support.
xoxo, Carol
knit equals joy
I love Portland! It’s such a great city, for many reasons, and one of them is its totally artsy vibe. Portland recently had 14 local yarn shops participating in the 2016 Rose City Yarn Crawl. Some of my impressions:
In 2010, I went through a difficult time personally. It was suggested to me that I plan something to look forward to as a way to get through and beyond what I was going through.
Even though I began knitting a few years before, in 2009 my knitting really took off and I also discovered the amazing fiber arts resource and website, Ravelry.
The following year, one of my new Ravelry friends filmed a video as she and a friend drove to the New York Sheep and Wool Festival, affectionately referred to as Rhinebeck. Her video showed the beautiful landscape of Upstate New York in all its fall glory, but more than that, her excitement for Rhinebeck was contagious. I was hooked! I wanted to go to Rhinebeck! Rhinebeck would be my something to look forward to.
The planning started. I purchased airline tickets. I found my roommate (the friend above). Someone (not me) found a great place to stay in the Catskills. I made my Rhinebeck sweater.
I signed up for classes; if I were going to spend the money to fly across the country, it should be not only a social and shopping time, but also a time to increase my skills. I took a class on sweater design and one on Tvåändsstickning (!)- a Swedish knitting technique in which two strands of yarn, usually of the same color, are twined together. The classes were terrific!
Rhinebeck highlights:
Best of all was the realization that a meaningful trip could be built around fiber activities. Thus began the quest for yarn festivals, retreats, yarn crawls, and any other event that could be classified as fiber-related.
Since then I have attended the Columbia Gorge Fiber Festival , the Blue Moon Fiber Arts Barn Sale, the Rose City Yarn Crawl, and Vogue Knitting Live Seattle 2014, and my sisters and I toured Ranch of the Oaks during our 2014 Sisters’ Weekend. Each is worthy of its own blog post, but…well, my hope is to write up reviews after I attend events in the future.
This fun video introduces the next fiber event I’ll be attending:
I wholeheartedly recommend fiber events as the kernel for travel planning. They provide terrific opportunities to meet wonderful people, to become more educated in the craft, to have something exciting to look forward to and to plan for, and, of course, to increase the stash!
Meet-up for bagels before the 2015 Blue Moon Fiber Arts Barn Sale: