Tag Archives: PDX

Pink…yarn, wine, and a PDX bridge ramble

Posted on July 17, 2015 | 4 comments

I’ve just bound off and blocked a new design project.

Such pretty leftovers! And they kind of go with my wine.

I’ve loved every moment of knitting with this gorgeous gradient kit from Black Trillium Fibres. It’s Lilt, an 85/15 superwash merino/silk blend. Very nice. I’ve been intrigued by gradients recently, but this was my very first adventure with one. I’ll be back for more.

It’s a gorgeous day for blocking outdoors. And after my bird poop blocking incident, I’ve devised a way to protect my knits. I can’t show you what I’m blocking, but here’s the scoop.

I had a roll of this fiberglass screen material in my basement. Once upon a time, I was going to make simple screens to put in our casement windows when they were open. Long story short, it never happened, and then we replaced all the windows a few years ago. (54 windows. Ouch. Love the new ones.) So I cut off a piece and laid it over my blocking project. I put a few extra pins in the project to hold the screen up above it, and a few more pins to hold down the corners. Perfect! And no bird pooped on it…this time.

Steel, Broadway, Fremont Bridges

We’re having a very lovely summer in Portland. I walked the downtown bridge loop with a friend the other morning. It’s 2.7 miles from the Hawthorne Bridge to the Steel Bridge on the East Side Esplanade, over the Steel, along Waterfront Park on the west side, and back over the Hawthorne.

Play me!

A picture perfect day. And we also took a little side trip to see the new Tillikum Crossing bridge, which is scheduled to open September 12. It’s for pedestrians, bicycles, and light rail. No cars. So pretty.

Yellow plums are ripe; there will be some plum bourbon jam in my near future. What’s on your needles or in your kitchen this summer?

4 Comments

Posted in Knit, Portland area fun, yarn

Tagged black trillium fibres, blocking, bridges, Lilt, PDX

MLK Day service opportunity

Posted on January 12, 2012 | 8 comments

Monday, January 16th, is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the United States. How will you be spending it? Do you get the day off? I’ll be at a service workday for the Backpack Lunch Program. The program provides weekend lunches for children who are at risk of hunger on the weekends, when no school lunch is available. If you’re in PDX and looking for something to do, come and help us pack lunch sacks for the kids we serve at Woodlawn and King Schools. After packing lunches, there’s a short program with folk singing and honoring Dr. King. The Day Old Pastries, my music group, will be leading the singing, so I’ll be there with guitar in hand. Last year we packed about 580 weekend lunch sacks for kids at risk of hunger — just about equal to a month’s sacks that we need for the two schools. The event is at Woodlawn United Methodist Church, NE 15th and Dekum Street, from 1-3 p.m. Hope to see you there!

(backpack logo copyright Jill Penney)

So what’s up, knit-wise? I’m working on a little project. Yesterday Lorajean dropped off these colors, and I’ll be picking one for this project. I’ve already knitted a sample with some yarn I had here, so I know where this is going. I love it when the knitting cooperates with the vision the first time around…

8 Comments

Posted in Day Old Pastries, Knit, pattern design

Tagged Backpack Program, Day Old Pastries, PDX

SEA-PDX Yarn Train

Posted on January 17, 2010 | 23 comments

The annual Seattle to Portland Yarn Train arrived in town on Saturday, bringing Seattle knitters down south for a yarn crawl. I couldn’t meet the train because I was rehearsing with the Day Old Pastries, so I met up with Kathy at Knit/Purl.

I met Kathy last summer at the Sock Summit Ravelry party, and we’ve been bloggy friends ever since. She was with her friend Chandria, and Denise, whom they met on the train. I offered to take the three of them across town to Twisted, my usual stomping grounds. But first, I needed to check in at the PDXKnitbloggers’ home base at the Starbucks kitty corner from Knit/Purl.

I found Cindy, Duffy, Judy, Susan…and a table covered with yarn.

Susan was just back from TNNA, and she had a samples of her entire new Blue Faced Leicester sock yarn. Judy was trying to choose two coordinating colors for a design project. It was difficult, because they were all gorgeous!

We did make it over to Twisted. As we pulled up, my phone picked up a text message. It was a tweet from Twisted: “Love Stinks! Spend your Valentine’s day hexing your crappy ex with our Voodoo Doll kits! (Then go on a date with someone way hotter)” That made me laugh out loud. We went in asking for the voodoo dolls, and here they are, modeling in front of the wall of sock yarn.

Kathy bought some Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran to make a Pippi hat. It will be her first color work. Fun!

I also ran into Debbi and her friend Susan, and Sharon (but I forgot to take her picture, sorry).

All that yarn shopping is exhausting! We had a very late lunch at Costello’s, down the street, and then headed to Yarnia. I’d never been to Yarnia before, so this was an adventure for me, too.

Yarnia is like Build-a-Bear for knitters. You choose thin fibers/colors you want to put together, and they are wound off together onto a cone to make the yarn of your dreams. Denise was in heaven! She got exactly what she wanted for a shawl project. With sparkle in it, of course. Here’s the winding machine in action. (There’s a cone of shiny stuff on the floor, feeding into the yarn on the cone, but I didn’t realize it when I was filming.)

There wasn’t time to visit any more yarn stores, so I chauffeured the happy knitters back to the train station. And I realized then that I didn’t buy any yarn at all! I’m just not much of a stasher. It was a fun day.

Monday is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day here in the States. Are you participating in any MLK Day activities? I’ll be at a workday for the Backpack Program; they provide weekend lunches for needy children at a local elementary school. (For some children, a federally-sponsored school lunch is their main meal of the day, and there is no school lunch on the weekend.) The Day Old Pastries will lead some singing at the event. If you’re local and looking for something to do, it’s from 1 to 3 p.m. at Woodlawn United Methodist Church, 1425 NE Dekum, Portland, 97211.

23 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Knit, music, travel

Tagged Knit, PDX, pippi hat, twistedpdx, yarn, yarn crawl, Yarnia