We'd wanted to visit Powell's for years, the worlds largest bookstore. It takes up a whole city block, I lost Paul a couple of times in the red and purple rooms (each the size of a major bookstore) and it was wonderfully relaxing to have nothing scheduled except meals when we felt hungry.

The food was fantastic. We followed some local recommendations and all were great. You don't get mere cheese fries in Portland, you get Gorgonzola cheese fries, waffle-cut and covered in lumps of gorgonzola and awesome sauce in Henry's Tavern. I ate my first ever quail (tamarind-glazed with coconut sticky rice) in Silk, a Vietnamese restaurant. We found mini cupcakes, a fantastic deli (Kenny & Zuke's), and abundant food trucks that were all closed whenever we were near them. Missed Voodoo Donuts, so we clearly have to go back for that. And more time at Powell's.

I found the holy grail of notebooks in Powell's, plain, lined, or squared, acid-free NUMBERED pages with a table of contents. The manufacturer is Leuchtturm1917, one place selling them is lovenotebooks.com. Mine is a light green colour and I'm planning to use it for writing notes. Or karate notes. Or as a diary.

We went for a long walk in Washington Park, didn't make it the two miles to the Japanese Garden from the train stop, but it was good to be outside.

Spotted my first ever Aston Martin in the wild, just parked on the side of a road in downtown Portland. I think this is a Virage Coupe:

Paid a visit to Knit Purl since it was only a block away from our hotel, and found some of Brooklyn Tweed's Shelter yarn in the Homemade Jam colour. I picked up enough to make a Topiary wrap (the large size) since Portland doesn't have a sales tax. What Portland does have is a Doc Marten shoe shop, the first one I've seen outside of London.

We were only there for a couple of days, but Portland is a great city to walk in and relax in. Bicycles and dogs being walked were everywhere, everyone was friendly and helpful, and the weather was unseasonably beautiful. Everyone kept telling us we'd come on the right weekend and it wasn't normally like this till later in the year. Definitely one to do again!

My Etsy store is now open: Albion's Forge. I am selling ThinkMats, pieces of rubber chainmail you can fiddle with, stretch, jingle, scrunch, rattle, and ponder. If you're a natural fidget, this might be for you. If you're surrounded by natural fidgets, having these around might keep them away from stuff you don't want touched, like protective camouflage.

I have ThinkMat pieces in black and orange listed, the purple will go up shortly, with red, green, and blue coming soon. You can get the original ThinkMat hexagon, a strip, or a keychain. You can also ask for a custom piece, like a blue ThinkMat or a green keychain, and I'll do my best to oblige.

They are made with EPDM rubber rings and aluminium rings (so no chewing on them), these are definitely NOT for children. This is an adult's toy.

I'll put updates on the store Twitter feed when I post new pieces.

(This is my 1700th blog post and I'm glad that number ended up as my shop announcement.)

A small stash-busting project for sock yarn leftovers, Apothecary's Pocket is a drawstring bag designed to hold small things like vitamin pills or dice without rattling. I do hate rattling.

Pattern: My design
Yarn: Koigu PPPM and Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock
Needles: US1 2.25mm
Duration: 4th April to April

The first one took less than one 50g skein of yarn blue/peach Koigu and has linen stitch at the top, which is incredibly dense and too thick to scrunch up well when you have four layers of it together. I love the colours, and I might make a second one if I have enough leftover. I bought the skein for a beekeeper's quilt, but the thought of making several hundred hexipuffs doesn't much appeal and this gives me a finished project much faster.

For the second one I used leftovers from a pair of red/black socks I gave to my karate instructor for Christmas. It is slightly wider with Eye of Partridge stitch for the top. 18in is a good length for the strings, I found some tap shoe laces in the mall that are the right size but very wide. The drawstring part of this is too tall and doesn't cinch well either. The blue one came out better and I'm using that at work now.

Now that I have a proper drug-dealer's scale I feel more confident about using up yarn leftovers for small projects. I might even use it for weighing out stuff in the kitchen, but its primary function is to weigh yarn and fibre. It will be especially useful for the travelling scarf project.

This is going to be the most unusual project I have ever participated in. It's a simple seaman's scarf with 1x1 ribbing and a knit and purl patttern at each end (Little Pyramids), made in Malabrigo Worsted yarn (Cognac and Applewood).

And I'm done. That's all I'm doing. Later this month I'm mailing it to Florida, where a friend will put a section on using her skein of Malabrigo and my pattern, while I'm working on someone else's scarf to their pattern. Ten mailings later the scarves all return to their original owners with different coloured sections, each made by a different person.

I'm really looking forward to seeing each scarf as they grow, and how the finished ones turn out.

This fiber was dyed in Amy's kitchen back in December, using brown and red dyes with some patches left undyed. The Finn was a new wool to me, it's coarser than merino with a hairy feel like Wensleydale. It went through the microwave and the salad spinner in the dying process, I had no idea the spinner would be so useful. The colours came out more muted than I was expecting given the colour of the dye in the pot, but I like how this turned out as yarn. There are red bits and brown parts and red/brown mixes.

Fiber: Finn wool, hand dyed with Amy from Fibercycle
Construction: 2-ply
Amount: 230 yards, 3.5oz
Tool: Majacraft Rose spinning wheel

I was aiming for a fat fingering weight or skinny sport weight. This is over-plied in places, but I prefer that to under-plied and falling apart. The singles broke a couple of times as I was plying but that always happens. This skein is going to be an Age of Brass and Steam kerchief, I have just enough.

Next thing on the wheel is some Ginger baby camel/silk 50/50 blend from Corgi Hill Farm, which is a shimmery caramel colour. I've spun pure baby camel before, and I've spun pure silk before, neither were my favourites to work with. It looks like the long silk fibres will corral the short camel fibres and make it good.

Between the secret swap gift and some long-delayed half-finished projects, it's gone a bit quiet around here, but I have been working on a few things:

There's some chocolate cherry Finn wool on my spinning wheel that is almost done, I need to spin another half-bobbin and ply it. This is my first Finn and it's got a texture similar to Wensleydale or Gotland, more hairy and silky than puffy.

I have a short story in the works for the April meeting of Fictional Authors, our post NaNoWriMo writing group. The prompt for the story sparked all kinds of interesting ideas. The 2011 NaNoWriMo novel is still about 5000 words from completion, and my two beta readers want the ending. They know this is now book #2 of a trilogy and I have to write book #3 to finish it all off. I like the world I created for this set of stories.

My knitting has felt like a slog because I've had too many projects in progress and not enough project completions. I need those regular wins to keep going, which makes larger projects hard. I'm planning to finish off a pair of socks and a cropped cardigan, then start something new. Given the erratic office AC system, I'm thinking my next project will be a Featherweight Cardigan in fingering weight yarn instead of the Amelia in worsted weight yarn I was planning. I'll still make Amelia, but Featherweight has more immediate usage.

Chainmail has been made, a Full Persian bracelet for a friends husband in plain aluminium. I completed a Japanese Lace bracelet, like this one but with silver large rings and dark small ones, it completely changes the look. I also made myself a keychain because the USPS gave my subdivision lockable mailboxes (which is good) but put them in a place that is no longer on my way in and out of the subdivision (not good, and also means I can't put my mailbox key on my regular keychain with the car keys).

And in the category of super-secret underground projects, I'm making stock for a future Etsy shop. I have a shop name sorted out but the product name is giving me fits. I need some quality time with a thesaurus, a good cup of tea, and some creative friends.

This was made for a Ravelry Swap with the theme "Ewe Creep Me Out". Edgar Allen Poe wrote The Tell-Tale Heart, which was the first Poe I read and it stayed with me. The story was published in 1843 and is classic Gothic fiction. If you haven't read it, go read it now.

Pattern: Heart from Knitty
Yarn: Lang Yarns Tosca Light
Needles: US1.5 (2.5mm) dpns and circular
Duration: 13th February to 25th February

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --tear up the planks! here, here! --It is the beating of his hideous heart!"

I could have stuffed the heart with a battery, motion sensor, and a recording of a heartbeat, but that's beyond my electronics skills in the time allotted and also fairly evil given the Poe story (not that I couldn't do it, and not that I'm not evil, I'm just not that evil on short notice).

The pattern is fairly simple. I was flummoxed by the "CO at the start of the row" instructions for a bit and had to consult the interweb for the technique: you do a cable or knitted cast on assuming the first stitch is your slipknot. Gave myself a knitting injury with the double point needles poking through the skin of my index finger and I switched to a more blunt circular after that.

It caused unintended hilarity at knitgroup with the instruction to "continue until eight inches long" for the second valve. Getting that thing to eight inches took forever. When it was finished, I stuffed the ends of the valves with some sample fibre sent by Corgi Hill Farm with my last order, the colours were perfect.

When Welted Hat #1 was given to its new owner, she did a little dance, and wore it until she about overheated in the restaurant we had dinner at. Clearly this called for a repeat performance, though for a different recipient.

Pattern: A Hat for Eudora
Yarn: Queensland Collection Kathmandu Aran, with Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool for the hem
Needles: US6 and US8
Duration: 5th February to 9th February

I've never used Kathmandu Aran before, it's puffy and squishy and the hat was very loose, so I ripped out my first attempt and cut 10st from the cast on number. Doubled sock yarn didn't look great for the hem contrast colour with this grey yarn so I used doubled sportweight yarn instead, leftover Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool, which claims to be a sportweight but I think that's wishful thinking. If you're a fat fingering weight yarn, don't lie to yourself. Either way, it was about the right thickness and I love the flash of aubergine/eggplant purple under the brim.

The loose version of this hat was at pattern gauge when I checked, which implies the pattern is designed for a really big head (96st at 4.5 st/in). The one I already finished fit perfectly, but I didn't do a gauge swatch and the yarn was thin for a worsted. Once again I used wrap and turn for the short rows instead of the pattern directions, and made the decreases line up by ignoring the pattern directions. I also added a few extra plain rows to make more of a slouch, one before the wrinkles, a couple before the short rows and a few before the decreases. Since I had a different number of stitches to the pattern I went my own way from there.

I'm veering away from hats (after FIVE in a row) to work on a pair of plain socks and finishing my cropped cardigan (one and a half fronts, button bands, and assembly to go). One of my 2012 resolutions is to start and finish a full-size cardigan from stashed yarn, and once I have the cropped cardigan done, I'll be starting on an Amelia cardigan, to be made in light blue O-wool Classic.

Another day, another stash-busting project, another finished hat. This is becoming a trend.

Pattern: Windschief by Stephen West
Yarn: Morehouse Merino 3-strand in Oatmeal
Needles: US6 and US7
Duration: 25th January to February

I made the bottom ribbing a couple of rows longer than it needed to be but followed the rest of the instructions. I liked that the pattern was both the cowl and the hat, though the conversion from one to the other is trivial and makes me think about cowl-converting other hat patterns, or hat-converting cowl patterns.

The yarn was as I remembered, eerily light and fluffy, squishy soft, and with a sprinkling of vegetable matter throughout. My jeans ended up with pieces of hay scattered on them as I worked. To me, it's not that big of a deal because the yarn more than makes up for the minor irritation. Despite having a knitting tension that inspires envy from violin strings, this yarn did not break or pull apart for me and there were no knots in my skein. I like this stuff enough to overlook the hay.

I wonder if I have enough leftovers from this skein and my previous one to make the cowl?

February always feels like an absurdly busy month. The 5th is the anniversary of our first date back in 1994, which is now 18 years ago. Valentine's Day is a mere three days before Hubby's birthday, which is two weeks before my birthday. Then we get a break, event-wise, until the wedding anniversary in August.

I am still knitting hats. Windschief is going well, a second welted hat got ripped out after I got pattern gauge and realised the pattern was designed for an elephant. That'll get a restart after some emergency gauge calculations and a new hem colour, making it a grey hat with a deep purple hem.

A piece of my chainmail made with rubber rings and aluminium took a very short turn in a tensile strength testing machine designed for testing steel. It did not survive, but it was fun seeing its first incarnation ripped apart with bare hands as a quick and dirty tensile test. Test #2 was supposed to be a more scientific test, but it broke under the pre-load (which for steel amounts to the machine saying "yep, I have something here I can hold on to, when do I start trying to break it?"). Rubber and aluminium are not the most durable of materials under extreme stress, but they are very good to fiddle with when you're in a dull meeting.

With a week to go until the February meeting of Fictional Authors, our post-NaNoWriMo writing group, I finally have an idea for the writing exercise, which comes from Stephen King's book On Writing. I have done this exercise before and it came out decently then, this time I'm taking a very different direction.