On Monday evening, as I was walking back from dinner, I just "happened" to walk by Knit-Purl. I really thought they would be closed, but it turns out they are open until 7 on Monday's. So, I popped in, with just a few minutes to spare, and wandered around in my typical yarn store haze. This is a particularly beautiful yarn store that is well organized by yarn weight, which is my favorite way for a yarn store to be organized.
They also happen to be the same business that produces the ShiBui yarn line. If I didn't already have quiet a bit of that in my stash from previous visits to the store, that would be a no-brainer acquisition. It is so beautiful! They also have a wall of Koigu. If you've never seen a wall of Koigu, just use your imagination and know that it is just a beautiful as you think.
I found something else though, tucked in a bottom shelf that I have been thinking about for quiet some time. Yes, that is Malabrigo Lace Weight in the color "Blue Surf". It looks just like the sky, with puffy white clouds and feels like a dream - so soft! I can not wait to make something special with it.
The next day I went to another wonderful Portland yarn shop called Dublin Bay. This is such a beautiful store that I always want to curl up on one of their couches and hang out for hours. I did not this time, but only because in order to do so I would have had to fight with a parking meter. I did, however, find the above book. This is one of those books reissued by Dover Publications. It was originally published in England in 1953.
It was less than $10 and is full of really interesting lace patterns. One of my favorites is above. Many of the patterns are for household items, like curtains, bedspreads and doilies. While I don't see myself knitting anything like that anytime soon, I could imagine adapting some of these patterns for shawls or other wearable items. Since it contained several stitches I had not seen anywhere else, I thought it was a worthwhile purchase.
Believe it or not, other than a couple of very small items, these were all of the "yarny" type items I bought. However, I did take a trip to one of the big Goodwill Stores in East Portland to look at books. At one point I had found a pretty nice pile of children's book and was feeling pretty happy about it, when I decided to thumb through the "Little Golden Books". When I was a kid, these were a central part of my library so I have a soft spot in my heart for them.
Well, my heart nearly skipped a beat when I flipped this one over:
This was, bar none, by very favorite book when I was small. I have lost track of my childhood copy and didn't realize how much I missed it until I found this one. 
I can not tell you how many hours I spent looking at these pictures, imagining myself in each of them. So much color, so much adventure!
I grew up on a farm and did have a horse. I always loved looking at all of these other horses and knowing that my simple little farm horse was the same as all of these gorgeous horses, someone just needed to paint a good picture of her...:)
One more, just for fun. There is nothing like finding a very fond piece of your past. Best $.49 I've spent in a long time!
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