yellow balsamroot, blue lupine, purple vetch, blue sky
The wildflowers are in peak bloom in the eastern Columbia River Gorge. I went hiking with friends on Thursday in the Memaloose Hills. This is on the Oregon side of the river, on the other side of the Cascade Mountains. The dry side!
red paintbrush, too
It was a gloriously beautiful day.
So many flowers! See Mount Hood just peeking out under the clouds on the right?
It’s good to have friends who like to hike with you.
Big headed cloverlarkspur/delphinium
I’m not sure what this is, but I love the seed pods.
This is a reminder to me, to think about hiking in April for wildflowers. Sometimes May is just too late. What’s blooming near you?
Still catching up! I came home from Spain because I had a trunk show at For Yarn’s Sake for Rose City Yarn Crawl. It’s an honor to kick off the crawl there.
Trunk show!
This year I featured brioche, assigned pooling, and brioche plus assigned pooling. That pretty much sums up what I’ve been working on this past year. Also, those are the classes I’m teaching at For Yarn’s Sake, so it was a great chance to promote them.
Dawn Barker of Barker Wool was there with a trunk show of yarns and designs. She’s done so much pioneering work with assigned pooling, and dyeing her own yarns to make her vision come to life. She has also done pooling yarn collaborations with MadelineTosh (and I have used several of those), but this year’s focus was on her own brand.
It’s always fun to see knitters wearing my designs! The Portland Frog Hat (free pattern!) was a big hit this last year. Alison’s hat looks great.
Margaret’s Starstruck is perfect! She took my brioche + pooling class last year, and this is the FO that came out of it.
Not my pattern, but Lisa took my steeking class last year, and then steeked this sweater that she designed. She had been waiting to cut until she took a class.
And Sam came by wearing the hat featuring the pooling stitch that I used on the Scattered Petals cowl I’m wearing. Rhyming!
The day was super busy, so I don’t have any more photos from the crawl. I taught a pooling class last weekend, and I’m scheduled to teach beginning brioche on Sunday April 26 at For Yarn’s Sake.
I taught the same class at Hook and Needle last weekend; we had fun! Come knit with me!
This Portland Frog Hat is a little too big. I have a big head, and it’s big on me. So I started knitting another one, 4 stitches smaller. It turns out I don’t have enough yarn to finish the smaller one, so…I’m frogging this one! The hat will be going to Sheryl in Spokane (proceeds going to Northeast Emergency Food Program), and she’d prefer the smaller size, too.
I had steam blocked the hat shown above, so the yarn was pretty kinky. I didn’t want to soak it, in case there’d be any color change. Steaming is my best option. But first, I’d have to wind it into a hank. You can’t steam a ball of yarn!
new hat WIP, and previous hat yarn on niddy noddy
I wound the yarn on my Kromski niddy noddy. I don’t spin, but this thing comes in handy sometimes, anyway!
I had to look up how to wind on a niddy noddy; it’s been a while.
I steamed it on my ironing board with my steam iron, and it went from curly to smooth.
I’ll be done re-knitting tonight. And then I’ll weigh the FO, and see if there’s enough for a second hat in the smaller size.
Portland is not war-ravaged, nor is it burning to the ground, despite what you may have heard. I went with a group to knit in peaceful protest outside the ICE facility on Thursday. The hippo was the first inflatable costume I saw that day.
I resurrected my favorite tote, even though the corners are wearing out. Before you ask, no you can’t get one of these any more; the maker has closed her shop.
Artists (Artifa!) were painting on the other side of the street.
Inflatable costumes are available if you’re so inclined!
Although you can donate to the cause, too.
I chatted with people as they came by. Many were visiting from away, and wanted to see what was really happening in Portland. I spoke with people from New York City, Nebraska, Colorado, Florida. It was nice to connect with people on a beautiful autumn day.
Last week (May 7), I went on a wildflower walk in the Columbia River Gorge, on the other side of the Cascade Mountains. That’s the dry side. I was enticed by the pictures of balsamroot in my Facebook feed.
I wanted a view of Mount Hood, so we crossed the river to Washington. This was one of the only clumps of balsamroot left this spring. I don’t know if it’s warmer/dryer this year, but last year there were a lot more! I’m going to have to put a note in my calendar to go in April next year.
There were a lot of poppies, though! I didn’t see any of those last year.
I love how luminous bitterroot flowers are.
The bachelor’s buttons were also out in force.
Catherine Creek Falls
So good to have friends that I can talk into excursions! I promised that it was a walk, not a hike. With views of Mount Hood and the Columbia River! We stopped in Hood River, Oregon on the way home.
We saw wing foilers, which seem to be the next interatiion after the windsailers. Pretty cool!
The Rose City Yarn Crawl is coming right up, Thursday March 6 – Sunday March 9. Lots of shops to visit, lots of prizes to win! The theme this year is “Our Sky Full of Stars.”
I’m having a trunk show on Thursday at For Yarn’s Sake, come say howdy! I’ll have lots of knits to squish, including my latest design, Starstruck. Way to fit the theme!
It’s busy season around here. This morning I gave a lecture on blocking and taught a class on brioche + assigned pooling for Vogue Knitting Online.
Trunk show is this week, and next week I’m heading to Nashville for NashYarnFest. This is the first NashYarnFest; it’s being put on by Modern Daily Knitting. I’m looking forward to knitting…and some music!
Speaking of Modern Daily Knitting, I have news! I’ll share in the next post…
A hot dry weekend is always better under the trees!
It was our very timely ladies’ camping weekend. We went to Panther Creek Campground in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, just north of Carson, Washington.
Rocks in Panther Creek
The water in the creek is clear and cold, perfect for a bracing dip on a hot day. The rocks are such pretty colors, too.
Panther Creek Falls
Panther Creek Falls is a twisty drive of 4.7 miles up the road, and then a very short hike. You can go down to the bottom of the falls. Stunning!
Panther Creek Falls, from the bottom
What a gorgeous beetle.
Tai chi
The tent pad at the vacant site next to ours made a great tai chi space.
I played with beads (ankle bracelets)
and I almost finished this project. We’ll see if blocking makes the brioche patterning show up better in the green section. Super fun to knit.
We also played games and just had a great time hanging out. It was a perfect weekend with friends.
How was your weekend? Hot? Do you knit when it’s hot? I always knit!
I’ve been playing with some ideas, zeroing in on what to keep, and what to toss. This first version (Knit Picks Chroma Fingering) was my attempt to spare my pooling yarn from the tenth frog/restart. It’s pretty good, just a bit longer than I wanted. I’ve got it figured out, and I’ll be looking for test knitters soon.
Trailing Leaves cowl, Take Two
This pooled version (Yarn Snob Fingering) is the right length, and I changed the increase rate to get to the number of stitches I wanted for the edging. But you can’t really see the pooling, because it’s on the sides and back of the green brioche section. Why do all that extra work, if you’re not going to see it when you wear the finished object? The leaves are really the star of the show. So I don’t plan to release a pooled version as a pattern; it’s a unicorn.
That doesn’t mean I want to give up the idea of combining brioche with pooling/algorithmic knitting.
Places you can knit: Bon Bon Vivant sound check!
There’s enough yarn left over for me to design another piece. It features that lovely syncopated edging, too. I’m halfway done…
Places you can knit: Margo Price at the Blues Fest
We had a great time at the Waterfront Blues Festival this weekend. It was HOT, so we were mostly there during the evenings. Of course I brought my knitting.
And my Lantern Moon fan, which I’ve had since 2009 (Sock Summit!). Make your own breeze!
Local great Curtis Salgado and 11 more fabulous musiciansHawthorne Bridge lift for the fireworks barge to get throughDoing our part! (We take this picture every year)
Bisquee hopes you’re keeping cool! We have central air conditioning, so she’s not as hot as she looks. She’s enjoying her bit of sunshine.
Do you knit when it’s hot? It’s always nice indoors here! But I did knit outdoors at the festival, too. At least it was a small, not very woolly project!
Well, I didn’t manage to knit in public on Worldwide Knit/Craft in Public Day, but I did knit at a baseball game last Thursday. I’ll knit anywhere, on MY schedule. That piece of knitting has since been frogged; I decided I wanted it to be narrower. Each cast on is a swatch, until it’s not!
The previous cast on went along for quite a while until I realized that I made a math error on the decrease shaping. Along the way I decided to flip it from bottom up to top down because increases are prettier than decreases, and I’d start with fewer stitches. Bonus! That’s what I was experimenting with at the baseball game.
Marine Drive, Columbia River
No knitting while bicycling! DH and I went on a bike ride along the Columbia River. We had great views of the river, birds, Mount Hood (see it at the top of the picture?). This is an urban ride on a path alongside Marine Drive, which is very busy! I’m glad we could be off the road for most of it.
Fundraiser for Parkinson’s support
We’re participating in a fundraiser for Parkinson’s Resources of Oregon this month. DH was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease last year (early, mild symptoms, doing great). Parkinson’s Resources of Oregon has very helpful programs including informational seminars, activities, and support groups. If you’d like to donate, here’s my link. Thanks for considering it! And here’s a link to DH’s Parkinson’s blog, if you’re interested.
We’re making the most of a string of perfect summer days. Not too hot, not too cool. I hope your weather and knitting are…perfect!
Find my patterns on Ravelry: Michele Bernstein Designs
Here are some of my favorites, and the newest. Many of my designs are also available through my Payhip store.
PDXKnitterati 