SuperEggplant

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):

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:

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.

I have plenty of mini totes, but sometimes you need a little drawstring satchel for those little knitting projects, especially if you’re going to put the satchel within another bag (because who wants a handled mini tote within a handled maxi tote?). This satchel and I are headed to Portland today:

Lest you think I’m a terrible mother for not making Deedle a raincoat, here is a poncho blanket I made for her the other day:

As you can see, I have a warped sense of the size of my dog’s head and neck. I made the blanket because Deedle gets cold very easily, and she shivers like a sad little pooch, and then she curls up into a tight little ball. She also turns around and around, so I figured the poncho blanket would keep her covered even when she thrashes about. The only problem is she can’t really get out of it, and if she walks, she steps on it and does a face plant. In other words, the poncho blanket can only be worn under strict supervision.

Today I was going to sew Deedle a raincoat, but thinking about designing a pattern for her oddly shaped little dog body made my head hurt, so I sewed a little zippered pouch instead:

Dude, check it out–it’s lined!
And your candy point for the day. Carrie sent me some goodies from Minnesota, including a seemingly innocuous bag of gummi worms (okay, gummi brite crawlers for you sticklers out there) by Fritzie Fresh.

These gummi worms are seriously addictive and superior to other gummi candies. I don’t really know what it is. They are not particularly sour, but they have this perfect little al dente bite to them, and just the right amount of crunchy sugar coating. I can’t stop eating them!