Field Trip

Early Saturday morning 6:00am (early for me!) I jump in my red Honda Element and I'm off for the first stop on my journey to the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival in Canby, OR.

First stop, pick up Julie, then we are off to Patty 's house, change car's (so Julie and I can knit on our way there - 3 hours!) None of us have ever been to anything like this and we are very excited. All we can think about is sock yarn, and more yarn. (Little do we know what awaits us!) One quick stop at Starbucks somewhere along I-5 in the fog. (we almost get lost trying to get out of there - we were in search of McDonald's for Julie's breakfast, but Burger King will have to do - remember I said it was very foggy!) Back on the road and the fog is lifting and the sun is shining bright!!! Here it is the middle of September and it feels like summer! We are all still Happy Campers! Time for one or two quick pictures before we run in! Directions for the Clackamas County Fairgrounds are excellent and we arrive just before 10:00am. It opened at 9:00am and Julie is a little worried all the yarn might be gone! We quickly park and rush to get across the street to see all the yarn that awaits us! But wait... what is this... Llama's greet us on the way in. Now we see the yarn... but we don't want to buy anything to soon... we may find more yummy yarn, so on we go. Now we are noticing that we are not seeing much yarn... lots of fleeces, and spinning stuff... WE DON'T SPIN!!!! (yet!!)

We investigated every booth and saw lots of cool stuff (I didn't know what a lot of it was, but it looked very cool). We did find Blue Moon Fiber Arts (a very crowded area and I think I should have stayed in there longer and picked up a sock pattern I had my eye on!) Loved the cute little top knitted with shades of blue Bamboo yarn! Loved everything actually. One skein left of Lucy in Lightweight!!! It's mine now! I also picked up Nodding Violet, Lightweight. These were very difficult decisions to make, I loved another colorway: Olive Garden - I think, Julie picked it up and a couple of other very yummy sock yarns.

Lines were long in a few vendor booths, and even longer at the bathrooms, but they were very, very long for the food! I skipped it, and opted for more browsing.

We meet a few very nice people that told us about Magic Loop - knitting two socks at the same time on one very long circular needle. Of course I just walk up and start asking questions, how else will I learn the secrets of all this knitting stuff! I have soooo much to learn and I love to ask people questions. I'll have to google this technique some day soon.

Just before 2:00pm we have spent our limits and looked at most everything twice! Happy with our purchases we head for the car and off to get ice cream! Well, we were in search of Coconut Bliss Non-Dairy Ice Cream - I got this awesome coffee flavor. The ice cream is only available in Oregon and if you can get your hands on it - do so! (Yes, I ate the whole pint - remember I said it was a 3 hour drive!)

Back to Washington - this is a quick shot as you cross I-5 back into Washington, Mt. Hood in the distance. Did I mention the really nice thing about yarn shopping in Oregon is NO TAXES!!!

I picked up a new little project that I think will knit up very quickly and I couldn't wait to get started on it. Here I am just getting started on my Girlfriend Shrug. It's going to be a Christmas present, so I'm not going to say anymore about this for now. (You can check out more of Wendy's cool stuff on her blog... knit and tonic.)

We made one other quick stop at a yarn store in Vancouver, WA and I can't remember the name. Very nice store and very nice people. No purchases for me, I'm staying on my budget... and I have some wonderful yarn coming in from The Yarn Corner later!!!

It was a wonderful day, good yarn, good friends, good weather (85 + degrees) and I was good and tired when I got home just before 8:00pm!

So now I say Good Night, and I'll have more pictures later!