Location:  Portland, Oregon

Shop:    Close Knit

Owner:  Sally Palin

One look at the name and you have to think, “I wonder if she’s any relation to…”, before you even finish the thought, YES. Her husband is Sara Palin’s cousin. But I got the impression the owner of Close Knit is not a supporter of her husband’s cousin.

Sally has owned Close Knit for 6 years. It’s in an artsy part of Portland referred to as the Alberta Arts District. Narrow streets with one main street of business, most blocks contained one building with 2-3 shops per building, nothing over two stories tall. Dilapidating buildings right next to brand new structures, obviously an old area of Portland that is being reborn.

The pic above is across the street, but a great representation of the neighborhood.

A small shop with lots of stuff in it. Tons of great yarn, a literal library of books, plus lots of great samples all throughout the store.

See what I mean? Every sample lists the materials used to make the item, and every sample is worth making. Even the baby sweater sample, I'd have to adapt it for my dog though.

Portland has a lot of yarn shops. Over 20, and that's just in Portland alone. Plus all the surrounding cities that house another 10-15 yarn shops. If you knit, or play with fiber, this place might be your heaven, especially the first part of March, which is when Portland has a Yarn Crawl. Get your 'passport' and have it stamped at each of the participating stores. A drawing is held for everyone that fills their passport and if you're the lucky winner you get a huge gift certificate to spend at those stores. A lot of places have this type of event, they're not always referred to as 'crawls', Seattle's is referred to as The LYS Tour. No purchase necessary, just a lot of driving around, GPS is strongly recommended in this city!

Tomorrow takes us to three more stops in this area. Not sure what's going to happen on Wednesday yet, possibly a day off? hmmm....