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4 days in Alicante, Spain

Posted on March 21, 2026 | Leave a comment

Travelogue, continued!

On Tuesday we took Renfe (a high-speed train) from Madrid to Alicante, which is on the Mediterranean Sea on the southern coast of Spain. It’s about a 2 hour ride, at speeds up to 300 km/hour (190 mph, thanks Siri). Very comfortable. Bev & John’s apartment is a 15 minute walk from the train station, easy!

Their 9th floor apartment is on the top floor of the building on the Calle del Teatro. The apartment’s wraparound deck looks down at the Teatro Principal which dates to 1847.

Castillo Santa Barbara is on Mt. Benacantil behind the city, right up the street. And I do mean UP!

We went to the Convistas bar in the very tall Hotel Gran Sol for drinks and views.

Looking down from Convistas at Hotel Gran Sol

Such a pretty esplanade, and palm trees in February!

Paella for dinner that night, and then a nice meander back to the apartment.

On Wednesday we hiked to the Castillo/Castell Santa Barbara, 166 meters up. (Castillo is Spanish, Castell is Valencian, and signs use both.) The views of the coastline and the Mediterranean Sea are spectacular. Definitely a great place for a lookout, so you could see your enemies coming. The origins of the castle date to the 9th century.

That’s the tower where we’re standing, yikes

Just imagine!

We walked back down through the old town.

Loved the art and poetry on this house. I guessed that it was a Time Flies/Tempus Fugit theme, but needed some help. And may I say that Google Translate with Google Lens is a very handy app? Here’s what the house says:

Pretty sure that’s months, not head of cattle, but the paint was slightly illegible on that line.

Sweet!

We visited a modern art museum, and then walked on the iconic esplanade.

It was very disconcerting to walk on; it looks like it undulates in waves from left to right. Can you see it? DH doesn’t see it in 3D, but it still makes me slightly dizzy!

There are a lot of gelato shops in this town. We only sampled two in our four days here. How virtuous!

Pizza at Scighera: Mozzarella flor di latte, chopped pistachios, bologna mortadella, burrata, pistachio sauce. Pistachio is the flavor of the moment in Spain. We had it in croissants, gelato, chocolate, pizza.

On Thursday we took a bus to Altea, a neighboring resort town.

We walked up to the square at the top of the town to see the church up there.

Guernica-inspired sculpture by Antoni Miro, and the church behind

So much public art, and such beautiful views of the sea. Look at those blues!

Of course I had to dip my toes in the Mediterranean Sea

And also knit a few stitches there.

A late lunch including the beverage of the week before heading back to Alicante. The weather was so nice the whole time we were there; this was late February and no jackets needed.

Friday was my last full day in Alicante, so we explored the town a bit more.

The Mercado, 2 stories of food, flowers, and more

We visited the Mercado, which is a beautiful 1921 building with 290 stalls of the most beautifully presented wares.

Oh, jamón! The Spanish love their ham, and it is delicious. Even the Mercadona grocery store had a display like this.

After the Mercado, we wandered through town back down to the waterfront for a walk along the beach.

So much public art and beautiful architecture.

Even down to the faux needlepoint on this restaurant, where we had a very nice dinner.

Saturday I took the train back to Madrid, because it was time to go home. Brandi Carlile and the Rose City Yarn Crawl were next up on the agenda!

I’d love to visit Spain again. I think DH would love it. Someday?

Three days in Madrid

Posted on March 18, 2026 | 1 comment

So much to catch up on! My friend Sharyn and I went to visit our friends Bev & John who are staying in Spain for 2 months. They came to meet us in Madrid before we all headed to their apartment in Alicante on the coast.

Madrid is a beautiful city. The architecture is so much older than west coast USA.

baroque facade — Baroque doorway at Museo de Historia de Madrid

This museum was in the neighborhood where we stayed, right by the Tribunal metro station. (The metro is efficient and easy to use.) The doorway dates from 1726.

Fancy!

We took a bus tour on the evening we arrived. It’s a good way to start to figure out where you are, and doesn’t take a lot of energy from the jet-lagged.

Do I remember what all these buildings these are? No, but they’re gorgeous.

a large statue of a head, Julia by Jaume Plensa — Julia by Jaume Plensa at Plaza de Colón

I did recognize the work of Jaume Plensa, having seen some in Chicago. We followed our tour with dinner at 10 pm, as one does. So continental.

On Sunday morning we headed for Puerta del Sol, a big lovely square full of people enjoying their day.

Churros and dipping chocolate, and café con leche, breakfast of champions!

The bear and the strawberry tree (madrone) are symbols of Madrid, and this statue in Puerta del Sol had lots of people waiting to take a picture with it. And kids were getting a kick out of 67 (is that still a thing they say?).

This ornate building was across the street from our churro stop.

Not to be outdone, the one attached to it appears to have bobbles on it.

Even the less fancy buildings were still quite lovely. We went to El Rastro, the famous open-air flea market, but it was pretty overwhelming, so we didn’t stay long.

Sharyn and I spent 3 hours in the Prado Museum, admiring the paintings of Velázquez, Goya, and many others. We could spend a week in there! No photography allowed, which is probably a good thing. My favorite painting there? Las Meniñas (Velázquez).

In the metro station on the way home, this Velázquez from 1660 was featured: The Spinners or the Fable of Arachne. How did I miss that in the museum? Easy, it’s a huge museum and we saw just a fraction of it.

Fiber arts are everywhere, right?

We had another fashionably late dinner that evening, this time at Cafe Commercial around the block from our apartment. Great vibe, and the olives…

Monday morning we headed for Plaza Mayor, the main square in Madrid; it dates to 1619. The buildings surrounding the square are uniformly impressive.

A bronze statue of Felipe III from 1616 is at the center of the square.

On the way to the plaza, we came across El Gato Negro, the yarn shop. It was a quick trip through, but the most interesting part about it was that you’re not supposed to help yourself the yarn. Let them know what you’d like to see, and they’ll show it to you. No pawing through the wares!

There’s a hang tag for each section of yarn, but the skeins weren’t individually labeled. And there’s a scale because you purchase by weight. This sport weight cotton yarn was 7 euros/100g, which is really quite reasonable. I’m looking forward to playing with my two hanks…eventually!

In the afternoon we visited the Almudena Cathedral and the Royal Palace.

The cathedral was begun in 1883 and completed in 1993. The interior is a mix of old and new styles. Note the modern stained glass windows above what looks like Byzantine-style paintings just below.

From there we headed to the Royal Palace. It’s…a lot. A bazillion chandeliers and marble and porcelain and paintings on walls and ceilings, and…very beautiful.

Enter here, and feel your insignificance

a 19th century piano, and several instruments by Stradivarius in this room

collar of the order of the golden fleece — Collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece (ooh, fiber adjacent!)

Tuesday, the next day, we were off to Alicante on Renfe, the high speed train. More later, but I’ll leave you with one more building to enjoy.

Adios Madrid, city of architecture, fountains, art, statues, olives!

1 Comment

Posted in travel, yarn

Tagged madrid, spain

Hola España!

Posted on February 28, 2026 | 4 comments

I’m in Spain, Madrid and Alicante. Coming home soon. But I wanted to share this:

I happened upon El Gato Negro near Plaza Mayor in Madrid.

It’s a cute shop, and they had some fun speckle and space dyed yarn, too.

It matched my flower power jacket. I had to buy some! It’s cotton, sport weight, 2 100g skeins. I wonder if I can get the pink to pool a bit. It’s a pretty short color pop. We shall see, later.

Rosaria shawls, my 2014 RCYC MKAL design

I’m coming home soon. Rose City Yarn Crawl starts Thursday, and I’ll be at For Yarn’s Sake on Thursday with a trunk show! See my latest designs, and get my book, Brioche Knit Love, if you haven’t already.

Also, I’m teaching Brioche Pastiche, beginning brioche, on Sunday April 26 at For Yarn’s Sake. Come learn brioche in person with me, me, me!

4 Comments

Posted in classes, Knit, travel, yarn

Tagged Brioche Knit Love, brioche knit love book, Brioche knitting, el gato negro, madrid, rose city yarn crawl, spain, yarn

Red Alder 2026

Posted on February 19, 2026 | 3 comments

I had a fabulous time at Red Alder Fiber Arts Festival last weekend. I taught 4 classes: Brioche Pastiche, Brioche Doctor, Embellished Brioche (brioche + assigned pooling), and Fun Stitches for Assigned Pooling. I was in my technique heaven!

Andrea wore her Whale Conga Line to Assigned Pooling class. I love seeing finished projects from previous classes!

Katherine wore hers, too! And I loved wearing my Seagull Flight shawl from Brioche Knit Love. (Seagull Flight pattern is still on sale for 15% off with code FLOCK through February 24.)

It was fun to have Lily Chin teaching on this coast! I usually see her in NYC.

The marketplace was full of goodies, as usual. And I feel like an influencer: Last year I asked several dyers if they had assigned pooling yarns, and I only found one.

Tara from Stranded by the Sea gave me the yarn that turned into Fired Up last year (see it over her shoulder?), and had lots more pooling yarn this year in both fingering and worsted weight.

I picked up some Starry Night to demo in my assigned pooling class, and also picked up sparkly yarn…and chocolate.

Phat Girlz Fibre also had pooling yarn, and Ashley took my pooling class to make the most of it.

Dragonfly Fibers/Canon Hand Dyes had gradient and rainbow assigned pooling minis (very cool).

And Northwest Yarns had assigned pooling yarn AND my books, which we sold out. Woohoo!

Greta showed me her Portland Frog Hat. I’m getting to ya!

I also loved Susan’s little frog hat in the Runway Rubber Duck contest. He took 3rd place, yay!

Debbie’s duck took Top Duck and Fan Favorite. The small scale lace and bead shawl plus the red hat were well done.

Anna-Lisa’s group won the Top Flock award with this Olympic themed team.

And Mr. New Beginnings at the train station modeled my Fired Up Cowl.

I had a great time teaching, socializing, shopping, and knitting.

But perhaps brioche plus pooling isn’t the best choice for knitting by the fire during a late night game of Cards Against Humanity. I taught Brioche Doctor the day before, so I was definitely prepared to frog and get this back on the needles!

This morning I gave a presentation on Design Process and taught an assigned pooling class for the Greater Boston Knitting Guild; we had a fun 3 hours together! Let me know if your guild would like a presentation or class, too. Tomorrow I’m off to Spain to visit friends. DH is staying home with the cats. Hasta luego!

3 Comments

Posted in classes, events, Knit, travel, yarn

Tagged assigned pooling, Brioche Knit Love, Brioche knitting, Fired Up cowl, portland frog hat, Red Alder Fiber Arts, Whale Conga Line Cowl

Seagull Flight relaunch

Posted on February 11, 2026 | 5 comments

Seagull Flight is one of my favorite designs from my book, Brioche Knit Love: 21 Skill Building Projects from Simple to Sublime. I’m now publishing it as a stand-alone pattern, too.

Seagull Flight is a two color brioche half-pi shawl that is knit flat. It features syncopated brioche rib, and brioche increases and decreases to create the seagulls. The shawl is shaped by increasing at pre-planned intervals rather than on every row, making it a very easy to follow knit. It’s knit with two 100g skeins of fingering weight yarn, or more if you’d like a bigger shawl.

a collage of photos of me on the beach with a hand knit brioche shawl — Seagull Flight on Rockaway Beach, Oregon

When I was working on Brioche Knit Love, I envisioned an Oregon Coast theme. We changed that to a coffee shop theme, so I had to rename all the patterns to fit that vibe. Seagull Flight is the only design that doesn’t have a coffee or pastry name.

A brioche knit shawl, and cups of coffee

So we photographed it with a flight of coffee!

The pattern is now available for individual purchase through Ravelry and Payhip, as well as in Brioche Knit Love. (If you’re planning to purchase more than 3 or 4 patterns, you should buy the book or ebook.) Please note that there are 2 files to download; the pattern plus an abbreviations page. Use coupon code FLOCK for 15% off through February 24, 2026.

(Apologies if you’re an email subscriber to the blog and are seeing this twice; I hit post before adding the links, so I deleted the post and started over.)

5 Comments

Posted in Knit, my book project, pattern design

Tagged Brioche Knit Love, brioche knit love book, Brioche knitting, brioche shawl, Seagull Flight

One more Portland Frog Hat

Posted on February 8, 2026 | 4 comments

A friend asked me to knit a frog hat for her. I don’t generally knit for hire, but I told her I would knit one if she would pay $75 to go to my favorite food bank. Okay!

Green knitting and a black and white RBG tribute project bag

I had the perfect yarn, so I took it as my travel knitting to NY for VKLive. I finished the ribbing on the plane, and realized that the stockinette portion was perfect for social knitting at VKL, so I stopped knitting and worked on a different project.

a green Portland Frog Hat — Portland Frog Hat

Done! I used Lamb’s Pride Bulky yarn for this one, 64 stitches on a US 10.5 needle at 3.25 stitches per inch. (I started with 60 sts, but it was too small, so I…FROGGED it and started over!) I’ve put the numbers into the Portland Frog Hat pattern, so now the pattern includes worsted, bulky, and super bulky yarn weights. Don’t worry, I’ll never knit it in fingering weight.

I think bulky weight is optimal! It’s quick, but not too thick. I love my super bulky hat, but you have to have big needles (US 15). A US 10.5 is something you’re more likely to have in your needle stash.

The pattern is free, so grab your green yarn and knit.

photo by Heidi Johanna Miller, @heidijohanna76 on Instagram

A friend shared this photo with me: A Portland Frog Hat at the Alex Pretti memorial in Minneapolis. I’m touched to see it there. I contacted the photographer for permission to repost.

Resist!

4 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, yarn

Tagged alex pretti, knitting, peaceful protest, portland frog hat, tactical frivolity

A frog is (re)born

Posted on February 7, 2026 | 5 comments

It was a toss-up about which of my frogged yarns was going to be on the needles first.

And it was this one!

two balls of yarn, and a bit of knitting

Remember I said I thought the dark purple was too contrasty with the pooling yarn? Before I went to New York, I popped in the LYS to pick a green, figuring that Mother Nature knows what she’s doing. But I didn’t love this so I ended up going with the dark purple again.

two hanks of yarn, before soaking to unkink it

I was really glad I wound 3 of my 4 hanks on my swift, because the dark purple that I wound on my 2 yard niddy-noddy was too wide for my swift when I was ready to re-wind it after soaking. I had to wait for DH to come home from a trip so he could be my human swift, the night before I left for VKLive.

The initial bit of knitting looks pretty good. Using the dark purple as background and a small featured accent helps tone it down. I’m not sure about my pooling motifs, though. And then I had another idea while I was at my aqua-fit class. I do a lot of mind knitting in the pool.

So this yarn is now the project on the needles.

brioche and assigned pooling knitting in greens

I’m realizing that the orange color pop is shorter than I’m used to, but it works fine for the motif I’m using. Part of the fun of assigned pooling is that every yarn is different, and you can choose what you want to do or not do, to adapt or let it be.

So this is my “mindless” knitting project to take with me to Red Alder Fiber Festival on Wednesday. I’ll be gone for the weekend, teaching classes and hanging out with other fiber loving creators. For now I have to set it aside and prep my teaching things, and pack!

5 Comments

Posted in classes, events, Knit, pattern design, yarn

Tagged assigned pooling, brioche plus assigned pooling, brioche plus pooling, embellished brioche, frogging, knit design, Red Alder Fiber Arts, reusing yarn

VKL NYC 2026

Posted on February 3, 2026 | 5 comments

I’m back! I had a fabulous time teaching and playing at Vogue Knitting Live in NYC. I taught 5 classes and we had a lot of fun!

I think the one with the highest risk/reward ratio was my Log Cabin Love Coasters class, which involved reinforcing and cutting steeks, and then adding log cabin edges. These knitters are no longer afraid to cut their knitting!

I was thrilled to be a featured designer with GoSadi, a new platform for designers and makers.

My Whale Conga Line cowl was featured in the designer display (upper group).

What is GoSadi? According to their site, “GoSadi is your central hub for discovering, saving, and organizing your favorite knit and crochet patterns from across the web. Follow your favorite designers, keep track of your projects, and find endless inspiration all in one place—built to make your creative life simpler and more joyful.”

The Makers part of GoSadi just launched last week. You can sign up for a free maker’s account at this link. There are upgrades you can pay for, but the basic membership is free. Decide if you like it, and you can cancel at any time. I’ve been part of the Designers side of things for the last year, but I haven’t spent a lot of time on it. I’m not good about taking time to learn new things that aren’t knitting! I’ll catch up soon.

I was charmed by Sarah Divi‘s interactive art exhibit; she was here last year, too.

Ellie d’Eustachio‘s knitted coral reef was kinetic and tactile, and blacklit!

She said the corals were especially fun to knit, and encouraged me to touch them.

I posted lots more pictures on my Instagram and Facebook accounts, so if you want more you can find them at those links. I’m not quite done posting yet!

I spent all of my time in the venue, the Marriott Marquis at Times Square. It was super cold out and I didn’t get out at all, except for a show on Wednesday night after arriving.

I went to see Maybe Happy Ending at the Belasco Theater, starring Darren Criss (remember him from Glee?) and Helen J. Shen. It was fantastic, very sweet concept and very well done. And the ending? Maybe it was happy; I don’t know! There was a technical issue before the last (?) act. The actors were asked to leave the stage, and it was announced that they were working on a technical issue. Dez Duron (the jazz singer in the show) came out and entertained us with a few songs. And then Darren and Helen came out to chat a bit and say that the issue couldn’t be fixed that night, and we were sent home (getting a refund). So, maybe happy ending? I’d love to see it again and find out!

I’m home getting ready to head to Red Alder Fiber Arts Festival next week. It’s all brioche and assigned pooling for me next week! There’s still room in Brioche Doctor, Embellished Brioche, and Fun Stitches for Assigned Pooling, so come to Tacoma and knit with me!

woman wearing a handknit cowl featuring assigned pooling motifs — Fired Up assigned pooling cowl

5 Comments

Posted in classes, events, Fame, Knit, travel

Tagged GoSadi, Maybe Happy Ending, New York City, VogueKnittingLive

Green Tea Chai Scarf

Posted on January 26, 2026 | 2 comments

I’ve always meant to individually publish some of the patterns from my book Brioche Knit Love: 21 Skill Building Projects from Simple to Sublime. I managed to publish one, Seafoam Latte, and then the project slipped to the back burner. Oops.

woman wearing brioche knit scarf — Seafoam Latte

On to the second one, 3 years later!

A leafy green brioche knit scarf — Green Tea Chai Scarf

The Green Tea Chai Scarf is a two color brioche scarf, knit flat. Regular increases and decreases create the leafy pattern. The stitch pattern is easy to memorize, and it’s a great opportunity to learn to read your knitting.

Pattern requires two 100g balls of worsted weight yarn in contrasting colors. Knit to the length you like. Gauge is not critical. I used two balls of Malabrigo Rios in contrasting colors for my scarf.

You can find this pattern on Ravelry and Payhip. And in Brioche Knit Love, of course! If you’re planning to purchase more than 3 or 4 patterns, you’re better off purchasing the e-book or paperback. I like giving options. The download consists of two files: the pattern, and the abbreviations used in the pattern.

Use coupon code SIPPER for 15% off through January 31, 2026. (Editing to add: this coupon now works on both Green Tea Chai and Seafoam Latte! Use on one or the other, or both.)

A note: RIP Alex Pretti and Renee Good. My heart is broken for the people of Minneapolis.

2 Comments

Posted in Knit, my book project, pattern design, yarn

Tagged brioche knit love book, green tea chai scarf, Malabrigo Rios

Oops I did it again

Posted on January 23, 2026 | 6 comments

Peekaboo shawlette featuring brioche and assigned pooling

I should have knit the Peekaboo Shawlette on a smaller needle. I did correct that in the pattern, but the looseness bothered me in person. It made the motifs not quite close at the top.