Where have I been?

Yellowstone
Originally uploaded by littlekidd

Here, there and everywhere. We've put 1,500 miles on the van in the past two weeks. Before that? I've been knitting, just not blogging. School's out, the sun is shining. I will get around to taking some knitting pictures and posting them as soon as I get home.

We've had a sea change in the Portland knitting scene. Yet another new shop, Twisted, opened in July. It brings smiling faces and yummy sock yarn to my very own neighborhood. It also brought the number of Portland knit shops to 20 plus. Too many to sustain.

The tipping point had been coming, it seems. Two of our favorite local shops have shut their doors this summer. The owner of "Lint" in NW Portland decided running a shop while being mom to a beautiful baby boy was too much. Because of the super-saturated market, she couldn't find a buyer.

And our beloved Mabel's shut it doors just last week. Owner Cait decided the coffee shop/yarn store combo wasn't going to keep the lights on. Lots of people came to drink coffee and knit. Not so many were buying yarn. So pretty soon, Mabel's will be "Tandem" coffeehouse, also run by Cait. I'm sure glad she's staying around. I will bring my knitting and drink their coffee and wish they still had some yarn to sell.