Door Prize! What? For ME?

I tried out blocking rods for the first time. See my
weird little edges? Stretched out stitches. Oh, well, I
will wash it out.

For the past 3 years I have been attending the Rose City Yarn Crawl here in Portland, Oregon. I found out about this event just a couple of years after I started knitting and I was hooked after my first time out. And it turns out I only missed one of the years as it had just really started up! Lucky me. I pledged to be there for all future crawls.

The whole experience feels like being on a vacation to me. I love visiting all the stores and learning the personalities to be found in each one. And there is a permeating feeling during the crawl like you are visiting old friends, or are at a reunion--the type you want to attend. Everyone is feeling friendly, the stores are bustling like it's Christmastime and the employees and store owners are all excitement and smiles, despite their ever so slightly frazzled appearances.

It's all good, all around. But this year mine got better, if that were possible.

Every year there is a passport that you can print out from the RCYC website with all the stores/logos on it. You are supposed to take it around with you over the four day crawl and get it stamped by the people in each store. (You also get a bonus button to pin to your RCYC official bag, which I love. I have a personal goal to make my knitting bag look like Portland's own Ramblin' Rod's cardigan.)

Observe said cardigan. This is the future of my knitting bag.

At the end of the crawl, you turn in this passport to your last store. Some people do that by Thursday night, but I never can turn mine in that early--I'm pretty chatty. Imagine that. It slows my shopping down. Thus, I turn mine in on Sunday afternoon.

Each store that you visit gives you the option of signing up for door prizes and that big passport turn-in puts you in a grand prize basket drawing.

I never win anything, in spite of visiting all the stores. And more than once.

But this year I did. It wasn't a grand prize or even a big basket, but it was a door prize, nevertheless. I'll take it. Close Knit's owner, Sally, emailed me to tell me the great news and I immediately emailed back, then picked up my poncho kit the next day.

Before I left the house, my husband was joking that it was probably going to be "some color they don't want anymore!" He laughed.

When I got to the store, they handed me this cute little project bag that contained.....

...goldenrod yellow yarn--TECHNO-- and a Sasha wrap pattern from Blue Sky Alpaca. Lucky for my I love that color.

And I adorned my wrap with my grandmother's very cool, very old pin.