Re-Wired

Now that John has his tie, I can post the pictures of it being blocked and you can see why I need the dressing wires.

Local Businesses

After ordering the dressing wires, I got to thinking about all the products I've purchased or ordered that are actually from Portland-area or Oregon businesses. So I thought I'd mention a few. In all cases, I've either ordered directly from the company or order their products from an online retailer (and received it in record time because it was dropped shipped from a warehouse just a few miles away. How cool is that?), or availed myself of their services.

Clothing and Accessories
Norm Thompson
Solutions
Ellington Leather Goods
Baggallini

Food
Bob's Red Mill
Moonstruck Chocolate
Rogue Valley Creamery

Yarn Shops get a mention just because there is such a high concentration of stores in a relatively small geographical area. I've actually visited all but three of the Portland area shops—some many more times than once—and several of the shops in the rest of the state.

Yarn and Fabric
Handworks NW
Knit Picks
Blue Moon Fiber Arts
Aurora Silk
Palmer/Plesch
Saf-T-Pockets Patterns

If you happen to be in search of someone to help you buy/sell a house contact City Properties Group.

Portland is Dog Town USA and there are lots of doggy stores and services. Our favorite is The Dog Club of West Linn.

Wired

I finished knitting a gift a week ago Friday and it was in need of blocking and at 60" long it really needed to be blocked with wires. I have blocking wires—somewhere; I've seen them since we moved, but obviously put them in a "clever" place. I called five of the nearest local yarn shops; no one had any in stock—probably because it's that time of year and everyone thought about these things before I did. However, Molehill Farm suggested that the wires from Lisa at Handworks NW were the best.

Thanks to the handy-dandy Google, I found Lisa's site quite easily. The set is reasonably priced (shipping by Priority Mail included) and Lisa is local. Clearly this was my best chance at getting the wires in time to block the gift in time. I mailed my check that day (no CCs right now). On Wednesday, I wrote to confirm receipt of the order and told Lisa that I'd really hoped to have them that week. Since Priority Mail is iffy right now, she offered to drop them off on her way to work. Now that's service!


On Thursday, I had my Dressing wires as, Lisa refers to them, in hand. The set came packaged in a PVC pipe closed at one end, with a removable cap on the other. The packaging makes for convenient and easy (to find) storage. The set consists of a total of 42 wires in three different gauges and two different lengths (compared to 14 in the missing set). Though this project didn't require all the wires, the advantage of having the greater number of wires is that an entire garment can be blocked at once.

Also included were 30 T-pins, a note describing the history of the dressing wires, instructions and a square of emery cloth - in case a wire end didn't get polished enough.

The gifty is now blocked, sewn and sitting under the recipient's tree. (I did take pictures during the blocking/dressing process, but that will have to wait till after Christmas.) And I have a very cool wire set.

Oh and one more "feature" of the set is that Lisa donates a portion of the proceeds to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

Thanks, Lisa!