Category Archives: travel

Friday TNNA report: The fun begins

Posted on January 12, 2011 | 7 comments

I went to the TNNA trade show with Lantern Moon, and it was busy, fun, mind-blowing…the list goes on. I went wearing four hats: LM blogger, PDXKnitterati blogger, designer, yarn shop teacher. I was inspired in all of these aspects of my fiber life! We went down to Long Beach on Thursday, and landed during a gorgeous sunset.

The Lantern Moonies (10 of us) all stayed in this house across the street from the beach. It was much more congenial than staying in a hotel. And you really get to know your fellow Moonies when they’re also your fellow roomies!

On Friday I helped set up the LM booth.

I visited my friend Lorajean and her baby O. Pico Accuardi Dyeworks was there, and they were also distributing her yarn line, Knitted Wit.

And at the end of the day, it was time to kick back with some knitting!

There were some knitting lessons for two new knitters…more on that later.

7 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel

Tagged TNNA

‘ukulele and more music

Posted on December 30, 2010 | 14 comments

Just to be clear, we did make it back in time for Christmas. It was theTeen’s last appearance as guitarist/liturgist in the Christmas pageant run by the youth. He’s a HS senior, and I’m having empty nest syndrome already…

(incoming flock of angels, just had to share)

But not so much empty nest syndrome that DH and I didn’t abandon him to his own devices for a week so we could play and Christmas shop in Hawaii. DH and I took a ‘ukelele class with this guy one afternoon.

It was easy to pick up a few chords, and as I tell my Pastries, three chords makes a simple song. Since there are only 4 strings, it’s a bit easier than guitar. I can play a barre chord! DH fell in love with the instrument, so I offered to buy him one for Christmas. We shopped here, based on the recommendation of one of my guitar buddies.

Lovely instruments, but we weren’t quite ready to buy.

We went to a show at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center and saw slack-key guitarist George Kahumoku, Jr., and Daniel Ho, who sings, plays piano, ‘ukelele, slack-key guitar, and I don’t know what else. Both of these talented gentlemen have won Grammy awards for their work. Uncle George even let us hold them for a photo op.

When we came home to rainy Portland, it was time to jump right back into Christmas week activities. We finished our uke shopping at Artichoke Music, our favorite local music shop. (We bought our first guitars there many years ago.) There weren’t a lot of ukes in stock (a run on ukes for Christmas, who woulda thunk it?), so we ended up buying a Fluke. Interesting construction, made in USA, big happy sound. It’s very sturdy and DH will be able to take it on his many travels. A winner!

Here’s one knit related thing in this post. Sharon won this vintage learn-to-knit booklet in the white elephant gift exchange at the Lantern Moon holiday party. I love the expression on the knitter’s face.

What’s your favorite knitterly gift this year?

14 Comments

Posted in music, travel

Tagged grammy, ukelele, ukulele

Tempus fugit

Posted on December 30, 2010 | 7 comments

Time flies!

DH and I escaped the pre-Christmas bustle and spent a week on Maui. It was warm, and mostly sunny. Perhaps not the most knitterly weather, but I managed, somehow. Here’s the view with and without knitting.

It was a perfectly relaxing week, which was just what we needed. The guidebooks all say that you should go up Haleakala (the volcano) to see the sunrise. You’d have to leave at 3 a.m. to make this happen, and drive a long winding road. In the dark. We decided that the only way we’d see the sun rise over Haleakala would be from our front porch. The sky was glorious just before sunrise.

And the sun itself wasn’t half bad looking, either.

We did go up Haleakala one afternoon, and it was beautiful in the crater. There are so many colors of sand and rock! We hiked down a bit; coming back up was a lot more work. We started at 9700 ft., but I forgot to check my iPhone altimeter to see how far down we had gone. (Yes, there’s an app for that.)

On the drive back down, the clouds had come in and the sun was shining on the water in a most hazily glorious way. I couldn’t tell where the horizon was because of the clouds. I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking at, because it was so bright, so I just took pictures and hoped for the best.

Here’s my other favorite sunset of the week, down in Wailea.

September…

Posted on September 14, 2010 | 17 comments

September is my favorite month. Not only do I have my birthday, we also have our wedding anniversary. Here’s what we looked like 28 years ago this past Sunday.

I also love the beginning of the school year in September. The Teen is a high school senior, so it’s the last of the first days of school. We celebrated with a trip to Black Butte Ranch in Sisters, Oregon, with three other families. Next year the kids will be scattered to different colleges, so it was the first in what will be a series of last hurrahs.

The weather was perfect. Crystalline blue skies, high 75, low 35 (fahrenheit!). Perfect for biking (Mt. Jefferson to the right, Three-Fingered Jack to the left, Black Butte cut off to the extreme right)…

crafting…

or lazing in the backyard hammock.

This is Black Butte, a volcanic cinder cone.

And the two snow-capped mountains are two of the three Sisters. The third sister (Middle Sister) isn’t visible from here. The closest mountain is Belknap Crater.

But what would a knitting blog post be without knitting? We stopped at the Stitchin’ Post in Sisters. It’s mostly a quilting store, but there’s an exquisite little yarn section.

I’d never seen this tilli thomas yarn before. The beads are on thread plied into the yarn. Gorgeous!

I did look at the fabric, too. I loved how this was put together.

I started a new knitting project, too.

Can you guess what it is? More on that in the next post. Gotta run!

17 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel

Tagged black butte, Knit, sisters

back from crafting, I mean camping…

Posted on August 7, 2010 | 10 comments

I’m home, skeeter-bit, itchy, and happy. We were at Swift Forest Camp on the Lewis River in Washington. It was marvelous to look up and see this by day…

…and a million stars by night. Being away from city lights really changes the night sky. It’s too early for the Perseid meteor showers, but we saw several meteors streak across the sky each night, including a very bright one tracing the Milky Way. Gorgeous!

I brought my knitting, and I was completely engrossed in my ruffle tank. I ripped both front and back down to the neck shaping so I could adjust the depth of the neckline. I had a “duh!” epiphany: I needed to figure how far *down* from the shoulders I wanted the neckline before I could figure how far *up* to start it from the armhole shaping, since I was changing the depth of the armhole, too. That sounds like gibberish, but it makes perfect sense. I wish I’d thought that through the first time. I also decided to forego the keyhole neckline on the back, and give it the same shaping as the front. I finished front and back, and started adding the ruffles.

I love how this is turning out; the ruffles are fun to make and charming to look at.

I shopped for these beads for an ankle bracelet last month and hadn’t gotten around to making it. Carole designed and put this together for me since I was otherwise obsessed.

We had some bead stash sharing and swapping.

It’s a multi-family camp out, which makes it all the more fun. The teens woke up on Thursday and decided to try to make a sailboat with the inflatable raft. It’s amazing what they can do with sticks, duct tape, rope, and the rainfly from a tent.

And it worked! Mast, sail, working boom, and a paddle as a rudder.

We had a great time, even without our electronic toys. There was no cell service in the area, and sometimes it’s nice to be untethered. But I’m looking forward to my new iPhone4 on Tuesday!

10 Comments

Posted in beading, Knit, travel

Tagged camping, Ruffle Tank, sailboat, sailing

summer slow down

Posted on July 14, 2010 | 5 comments

I thought I’d have a lot more knitting to show you, since I had 3 hours in the car and 6 hours on a plane on Friday, but I’m just a little further than I was in the previous post. Why?

See how the lace pattern on the back gets wider every 6 rows? Apparently I forgot to increase the lace on the left edge on the last increase set, and then I knit merrily on for 30 rows. Oops. I blame it on the spa at the resort. I had a delightful body polish/mud wrap/moisturizing treatment, and was so relaxed when I came back to my knitting that I wasn’t really paying attention. But it was worth it.

We passed through Boston’s Logan Airport on the way back, and I met up with a friend that I’ve known for years but had never met in person. We frequent the same piano forums, and Ravelry, and we’re Facebook friends, too.

Not only did she drive to the airport to meet me, but she brought me a gift.

Truffles from Dante Confections, made by Santi Falcone, her neighbor, the ex-piano maker. How cool is that? I read about him in “Piano Lessons: Music, Love and True Adventures” by Noah Adams, way back before I ever went to piano camp. Thank you, Kerri!

Flight home was uneventful, but I didn’t do a lot of knitting there, either. There was free wi-fi on the plane (in-flight wi-fi seems so wrong, since they’ve always told us to have our wi-fi OFF before this), so I caught up on my blog reading. Now I need to go knit, instead of reading about knitting!

5 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel

Tagged Dante Confections, Knit, passiflora

people will talk…

Posted on July 7, 2010 | 11 comments

Martha! Some crazy lady is out back taking pictures of her knitting!

Yup, it’s true. I’m at a resort on the coast of Maine for DH’s work conference, so the neighbors don’t know me. They can talk all they want. This is the back lace on Passiflora.

We came here via Boston, so I had a lot of knitting time on the plane and in a car. We spent a night in Boston, and took a quick tour through the North End before coming up by car. I had to see this.

One if by land, two if by sea at the Old North Church, right? Do you remember which it was? No peeking! In the meantime, here are the organ pipes in the church.

The organ was built in 1759 and was the first organ made entirely in the Colonies. The organ has been rebuilt several times, but the case is original. The clock was built in 1726, and is the oldest functioning clock in a public building in the USA.

And it was two lanterns, signaling that the British were leaving Boston for Lexington and Concord by sea. Points to you if you remembered! (I forgot.)

Here’s just after sunset last night.

We took a boat tour this afternoon; here’s the lighthouse and dock from the water.

You can stay in the lighthouse, but it’s not air conditioned. We’re having a heat wave on this coast this week, so I’m happy to be in a room with a/c!

Dinner tonight was a traditional lobster bake.

Doesn’t it look delicious?

I’m looking forward to seeing how Passiflora shapes up. The lace you saw in the previous post goes up the sides of the garment. There’s a little bit of lace on the front, but not as much as on the back. The lacy holes should be nice air conditioning. The yarn is fuzzier than I thought it would be, but it’s the yarn specified in the pattern. I wouldn’t want to wear it on a super hot day, but I can see wearing it in Portland…Oregon, that is.

What’s your summer knitting? Or winter knitting, for those of you down under?

11 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel

Tagged lobster, maine, passiflora

Virtue is its own reward

Posted on May 5, 2010 | 11 comments

That’s what they say. But it’s pretty sweet to get an additional reward.

Dez over at Knitting Asylum had a drawing for people who donated to Doctors Without Borders for Haiti. I won a prize! Pen and tape measure, and a beautiful stitch marker necklace made from Czech glass and shell. These are really pretty, and what a great way to keep track of them.

Thanks, Dez!

I was away for the weekend up at Menucha Retreat Center, working at our annual women’s retreat. This one was filled with music! We sang through the Holden Evening Prayer Service on Friday evening, which was lovely. Some of my Day Old Pastries were on hand to help with the music for the rest of the weekend. I love my Pastries.

I did get some knitting done. See my prototype shawl on my knee, and the new one in my hands? The new one is coming along swimmingly; I really like it. I’ll show it to you, soon. Check out the handknit socks, too.

My favorite thing at Menucha, besides the view…

…is the labyrinth. It’s a good place to be silent and meditative.

It’s always interesting to discover a new epiphany when I reach the center.

This beautiful garden is across from the dining hall.

There’s a hidden space up there, with a rock bench facing this.

I love spring, in all its glory.

How was *your* weekend?

11 Comments

Posted in Day Old Pastries, Knit, music, travel

Tagged Knit, Menucha, music, spring

The rest of spring break

Posted on March 29, 2010 | 23 comments

Knitterly stuff first:

The Felted Slip Stitch Tote. I felted this a couple nights ago. The colors are a bit muted compared to the pre-felted bag, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing! It’s still bright, but not too bright. I’m pleased with it, and I hope Shannon & Emily at Twisted are, too. It’s a shop sample. Now my original tote can come home! It’s been on loan for a while.

While I was up in Seattle, we went to Uwajimaya for groceries for CollegeDude (one more term!). Yes, I know there’s an Uwajimaya in Beaverton, but we weren’t going to have time to get there before he headed back down to school. There’s a Kinokuniya bookstore in Uwajimaya, so I had to go check out the extensive knitting section. I bought this stitch dictionary.

I really like the way it’s organized. There are sections for leaves/diamonds, lace, stripes, flowers/bobbles, zigzags, pyramids/checks…nice. The introductions to each section are really pretty.

I also met up with Kathy one afternoon before the guys came up. We went to the Japanese Garden at the Arboretum. Even in the rain, the flowering trees were gorgeous.

These seed pods were a little eerie.

The rain didn’t bother the koi.

When the boys came up, we visited the very cool Seattle Public Library.

and the market, of course. We needed more spices from Market Spice!

I love the market. Even onions become art.

On the way home, we stopped by the Museum of Glass in Tacoma.

It wasn’t open, but we really just wanted to look at some of the exterior art, and the footbridge that goes to the courthouse (full of Chihuly works, but I didn’t take a picture on the bridge). The US Courthouse is adjacent to the old Union Station, which showcases some of Dale Chihuly’s works. This chandelier hangs in the center of the rotunda.

And I love this window that looks back towards the museum.

A fun getaway, and now it’s back to work!

23 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel

Tagged spring break

Spring fever…

Posted on March 27, 2010 | 11 comments

This week I finished a couple projects, including the straps for the felted slip stitch tote. I felted it last night. It’s drying, so I’ll take pictures tomorrow. This project took more yarn in the heavier Brown Sheep Lanaloft than the original KnitPicks Wool of the Andes; I’ll edit the pattern notes to make reflect that.

I had a fun day at Pico Accuardi Dyeworks. I taught an entrelac class in the morning. We even purled back without turning our work! This saves so much time when you’re working stockinette over a small number of stitches.

I also took a drop spindle class with Deb Accuardi. We worked with wool roving and with top, and mixed in some other fiber, too. My goal was to spin a more consistent single, and I did. And then we plyed some of it, too.

Stevanie Pico taught dyeing. All in all, a fun day.

The days are getting longer and lighter, and the air is getting warmer. Weeds are springing up like crazy in the garden. The boys helped me weed the front flowerbeds, and we’re in the process of taking out all the Japanese anemone. It was only slightly invasive when we had a big birch tree to shade it, but when we had to remove the tree, the anemone got too happy in the full sun and took over the garden. Buh-bye.

With spring, I’m also feeling the urge to jettison my unfinished Heather Hoodie (bulky yarn) and cast on something breezy and new! But I’m afraid if I set it aside, I’ll never go back to it. Yikes. I think it’s all a result of spring break.

I headed up to Seattle last weekend to play guitar with a piano friend. Yes, that sounds nonsensical, but it’s true. We met in 2000 at September Sonata, a piano camp in Bennington VT. We were roomies then, and have been friends ever since. In fact, there’s a whole group of us west coast “Piano Babes” that get together at least annually. Some of us aren’t playing the piano a whole lot right now (moi, for one), but we still have a lot in common.

Last fall, I bought a new guitar, and Sheryl did, too. They’re both Takamines with the same body style (NEX); mine is cedar and mahogany with a satin finish, and hers is spruce and maple, with a gloss finish. We’ve been trying to get together to compare them, and finally did. Hers sounds warmer/mellower from the back (playing) and more forward/pushy/rock from the front, and mine is mellower from the listener’s point of view, and brighter from the player’s perspective. I happily played them both!

Some of the other piano babes came over on Saturday; we played/sang Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. We also web-surfed to check out kd lang’s version (she opened the Olympics with it), Jeff Buckley’s (hailed by some as the best) version, Bon Jovi’s acoustic version (my favorite), and of course, Leonard Cohen’s version (Live in London). C played this last year in Carmel, so it seemed like good common ground.