Seattle-to-Portland Yarn Train Report!

This was my second year to pull together a Yarn Crawl that starts in Seattle at 7am, crawls via train to several wonderful yarn stores in Portland, and then pulls the 59+ knitters back to Seattle by 10pm. All in a day!

Prepping for the Crawl, Uh Oh.
The cabinet below is a new acquisition to my studio. Four hours of putting it together the week prior to the crawl, and several more hours placing my best yarn in it made it abundantly clear that I did not need to buy yarn. (Notice, I did not say all my yarn...there is more in the yarn closet. OMG, I have to incorporate my yarn into my will, I'll never outlive it.) So, the yarn crawl had to serve other purposes than stash enhancement.

Read about the Yarn Crawl, See Photos, Blogs, and More. Be inspired.
Read about the crawl here. See photos from the day from many of the participants here (on Flickr). Follow the rabble on Ravelry here

The Day Did Not Disappoint.
Here are photos of my loot from the day. (With my everpresent Ben, overseeing the photoshoot. Kinda.)

Yarn gift bags prepped for the Seattle-to-Portland Yarn Crawlers. The bag had two skeins of Knit Picks Swish yarn and chocolates in each bag. We had a hat knitalong on the train with the yarn. By the way, purple was the first and foremost pick of this knit crowd.

My hat made with the knitalong yarn. I love this shape.

Gifts from Portland Indie Dyers Abstract Fiber, and Stitchjones

The "boobie prize" yarn (top) from last year came back to haunt me as a scarf. (The winner of the "dud" yarn last year, Ialiuxh, knit it and brought it to me.) Ben doesn't seem that wild about it either. The remains for the day (bottom): baby colors were not so popular - the only leftover gift bag.

Book acquisitions from Dublin Bay (top), Knit/Purl (bottom)

And one more, too intriguing to pass up: a Knitter's Graphic Novel, whoo hoo! (Also from Knit/Purl)

ShiBui (created by Darcy, owner of Knit/Purl) offers the coolest knit totes and needle cases too:

Knit Knot is famous for carrying local artist's jewelry - so I made a beeline there first. (top) Shawl pin and earrings. Last but not least, a knitter needs to see the stitches! Knit/Purl comes to the rescue with eyebobs reading glasses (bottom).

All in all, an amazing day. I can't wait for next year!