I'm sitting in a hotel room in Portland (the Vintage Plaza), listening to the rain and relaxing. Tim and I came down for a two-day get-away, time to relax and catch up on sleep without the kids. This morning we went to Powells and I added to my library with Deborah Newton's Designing Knitwear (Powells link, Amazon link) and Ann Feitelson's The Art of Fair Isle Knitting (Powells link, Amazon link) as well as looking at some others that I'll put on my Christmas wish list. We also added some non-knitting books to the library of course!

Lunch at the Rogue brewpub, followed by a visit to Knit Purl, lots of lovely yarns, friendly service. I got some Baby Ull for a cardigan for my daughter that I'll start after the New Year, it will be my first Fair Isle project - I've always been a little nervous of colourwork so I figured a size 3 cardigan was a good place to start. I also stopped in at the little needlework shop next door (The Playful Needle, no we address), also very friendly service, even though all I bought was a magnetic chart-holder for my needlework charts. Apparently they do blocking and make needlework into cushions, bags etc, so maybe I'll do that with some of the needlepoint I've had languishing around the house for years, to finally get it into a form where it's not just sitting in a cupboard.

Only one person knitting in the cafe where we had coffee; not many coffee shops around downtown apart from the ubiquitous Starbucks. And although I have nothing against Starbucks, I do like patronising the smaller places where possible. I must look on delocator before we go out tomorrow.

It's still raining outside, but even so it's time to venture out again.