We went to Portland the second week of January. Jim has been going to Portland for meetings every January for a number of years now and I have never been there. This year I went along (for an extra 10 bucks a night) We stayed at the Embassy Suites Hotel on SW Pine and 4th.
It was walking distance to all the downtown shopping - on my first day I spent $42.00 in Josephines Dry Goods. I bought a lovely bit of Liberty Cotton for $17.00 U.S. With the exchange rate at 15% and no sales tax at all in Oregon I was basically shopping at PAR. Also I found there were sales everywhere - being it was January (after Christmas sales) Josephines was 20% off the entire store. I went to Fabic Depot -- it was 30% off the entire store there. I had a great time there and spent $95.00 U.S. I took the Light Rail transit there from downtown. Very easy to get to.
The nice thing was to being able to shop and wander at my pleasure while Jim worked all day. In the evenings we went out for some great dinners. I had Crab Cakes at McCormick and Schmick's that were absolutely wonderful. Every night we had great meals - too much food and wine. I spent an afternoon at Powell's Books - got 4 Quilting books and a couple of novels. I took a bus over to the Hawthorne Street district one afternoon - found a Powell's book store there as well as a Fred Meyer. I just love American grocery stores. There are things in there that I never even knew existed. There is this Wolfgang Puck coffee that you can buy for $2.50 that looks like a take away coffee cup and it has this little built in heater that you activate and it heats the coffee up to 140 degrees. Can you imagine. I bought one for Eric (who still hasn't tested it out, when he does he will report back the results)
I really enjoyed Portland, it is a lovely little city and I hope to go back again. I took very few photos there - probably because it rained the entire time we were there. I did take one in Portland's very tiny and insignificant Chinatown. I added that picture to this post.
Hi Pam,I found your blog from the comment you posted on mine. You aren't set up for me to return an answer via email - you might do that so people can reply easier. I've just skimmed your posts so far, but noticed your mention of Portland, OR so decided to comment here. There are great quilt shops in Portland and the surrounding area - sounds like you didn't have a chance to visit them. If you come back sometime give me a holler and I'll show you around. I really like your suggestion of splitting the blue block into three blocks - that is most definitely doable! I already figured I'd split up the other two blocks as you said. I like this better than putting the one block on the back - I don't want to take any chance at hurting my friend's feelings. Thanks so much for the suggestions!
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