An Afternoon in Oakland

New post at Fiberly One's new home:
An Afternoon in Oakland

Fiberly Weekend in Chicago

It was all about "meeting" friends, fabric shopping and just hanging out. Patti Ferguson organized the weekend in Chicago where Mardel Fehrenbach, Barbara Bell, and Diane Egelston (DianeE on the Pattern Review and Stitcher's Guild sites) and I headed out, after four quick days at home, on April 25th. It was great to meet Mardel and Barbara for the first time, and see Diane and Patti again. We were missing Carolyn Norman and Marji Van Zile who at the last minute could not join us, but we were thinking of them all weekend.

Friday, we convened at Patti's house where she served up a delicious dinner of salads and home-baked bread. We had an informal show and tell, where I showed the only piece from my "planned" travel wardrobe I managed to complete. Butterick 4991; Silk Brocade purchased from Mrs Kimura's in Hawai'i


Saturday began at Vogue Fabrics in Evanston, where we all came away with something. I was surprised to find a dog fabric in silk. And though there was a considerable selection fabrics to tempt, in the end I brought home only the silk dogs, a pretty blue rayon remnant and acetate slinky floral.
  

Cennetta Walker, is a local sewist/blogger that Patti invited to meet us at Vogue. We enjoyed a nice lunch learning more about each other before heading to Fishman's Fabrics. Their selection of colors in different fabrics was pretty amazing, but unlike Mardel, I had not come prepared with swatches and a plan, so was happy just to enjoy the experience. We said goodbye to Cennetta, but not before getting a quick group shot.

Cennetta, Diane, Barbara, Patti, and Mardel

Next to Hancock Fabrics where Vogue patterns were on sale. Right off the bat, I found the cotton patterns and three dog fabrics for Tom. Then I headed back to patterns, with no intention to buy or look, but because of my susceptibilty to the the power of suggestion (mostly from Diane), I picked out two Sandra Betzina patterns, Vogue 2980, because Diane was wearing it, and 1036, because she pulled it out and I liked it.
  

Dinner at Tapas Barcelona with three of Patti's friends, Shelia Crumine and Barbara DeCoster, both sewists, and Margie Rogasner (in her words "the outlyer") was great fun because of the company as well as the food. Post dinner we went back to Patti's house where three husbands, Norm, David and Bill, were waiting, had some lively discussions, dessert and again, I was the first to fold. Patti planned to stay at the hotel to have a grown up slumber party, which she, Mardel, Diane and Barbara did, as I fell into my bed.

Sunday morning, before we had to bid farewell to Diane and Mardel, we posed for one more Fiberly friends picture.


Afterwards, Barbara, Patti and I took in the Chicago Botanical Gardens, where the bulbs were in full bloom and beautiful.


Patti and I said goodbye to Barbara at the airport and headed to meet Pam Walters for dinner.


What a great weekend it was!

Puyallup

That's pronounced "pyoo-AL-up. I was immediately corrected by my Seattle friend, so I thought I'd save you the embarrassment.

Sewing Expo
Anyway, that's where I spent Thursday. This was my first time to the
Sewing & Stitchery Expo and it was quite an experience and I was late to game so didn't get to do/see everything I wanted, and that in itself makes it a learning experience.

For the uninitiated, the Expo, organized by Washington State University, consists of a very few in-depth workshops, a few more hands-on classes and lots of seminars. Plus there were free style shows and seminars, and over 200 vendors. And though I can find no reference for how long it's been going on, it clearly has been a long time. The crowd on Thursday by noon was significant. For the in-depth workshops and hands-on classes, the major sewing machine companies have set up rooms so schlepping a machine isn't necessary.

I ended up with three (instead of the planned five) seminars on Thursday around machine embroidery. I learned something from each, but didn't quite come away with the inspiration I'd hoped for.

Embroidery Basics was all about threads, needles, and stabilizers. The speaker was a Sulky national trainer, so the focus was on their products.

Embroidery From Perception to Reality was presented by the principal for an embroidery software company on how to use software (in general, her product in particular) to aid in design and implementation of the embroidery. If I ever invest in an embroidery application, I hope I remember her ideas.

Quick Gifts on the Embroidery Machine was entertaining, which was good since it was mid-afternoon - not my brightest time of the day. Bobbi Bullard showed some interesting projects that showcased her embroidery design sets, as well as some of her other products, including spray dyes and Swarovski crystals.

Showplex and Pavilion
There were two venues for shopping and with six hours of free time, I managed to cruise the aisles of both several times. Pretty much anything you could think of around sewing was there; and depending on the time of day, it was just a matter of actually getting to and into any given booth. There was lots of fabric and the independent pattern companies were well represented.

Practicing some restraint, I purchased only 3 yards of fabric, since I seem to have outgrown my substantial fabric/yarn closet and sewing room and I don't have the option of piling my fabric in the shower like Bobbi Bullard said she does. I found a pretty red linen rayon blend at Dana Marie (formerly Purrfection), but both scanning and photographing didn't get the color right. Seattle Fabrics had lots of tapestry, including a cute puppy print that I just couldn't resist.

What I really scored on were notions. Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of the store, but here's what I got there for $5 (a bagful of notions).


I found two gadgets at the smaller of the two Pine Needle Quilt Shop booths.
 

And there were a few yarn shops who showed up, knowing that it's not always about sewing. Because I need more yarn even less than fabric, I again practiced restraint, until I got to the Seattle Yarn, where there bags of discontinued yarn and shawl kits for $40, including the two bags of Noro I couldn't resist - Gisha and Silk Country.
 

I'm looking forward to next year, now that I know the ropes.

Side Trips
When possible I plan trips around meeting up with friends. And this trip was no different, though I have no pictures to show for it. Wednesday, I lunched with Dave Harms, a work friend, at a downtown Seattle Thai fast food place, and had dinner with Mark Shelton, (has it been 30 years!?) at Indochine in Tacoma. Thursday, it was all about meeting with fiberly friend Diane Egelston for the first time; we had pretty good teriyaki at Ichiban Teriyaki, very near the Red Lion Tacoma where I stayed. Finally, I had lunch with Adobe friends, Fred Hale, Marc Madenwald, and Jud Richards, in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, at the Red Door.

There was time to kill between checking out and meeting Fred, Marc, and Jud, so I stopped at Kinokuniya Bookstore. Parking karma was with me and I found a spot at the door that I didn't have to actually parallel park into (I'm a terrible backer-upper). It's hard to compare them to the Portland store because the layout is so different. However, I do think they had fewer books with knitting than Portland. I did find two crochet books, though.
Crochet Accessories (ISBN 9784277430807)

   

Let's Knit Series 15 (ISBN 9784529043496)

    

Fabric, Yarn and a Dog

I feel I've been remiss in not posting Hawai'i pictures, but I just haven't gotten through the almost 300 pictures. That's a lot of pictures and I'm only about halfway through processing...and then I have to build the web pages. Maybe this weekend..

Fabric
In the meantime, I did take some pictures of the fabric I got from Kimura's Fabrics. It is a must see if you like fabric and you're on the Big Island. In addition to the fabric selection, you get to step back in time to when H Kimura's was a general store. But I was there for the fabric.


Tom will get two new shirts—someday.
 

I love red and just couldn't resist this silk brocade. I also like the "wrong" side of the fabric...what to do with it...
 

Yarn...well knitting
I've been concentrating on the Mom capecho. Here's progress to Tuesday. The sleeves are now on and the collar is in process, but I took no pictures to prove it.
 

And I did a little repair work on an RTW sweater. I responded message on the sewing guild list seeking someone to fix a friend's sweater.
 

And a dog
Jake is a sensitive dog and tends to have feelings of guilt at really odd times (it must be from whatever went on with his previous families). When he does, he finds a corner and leans and goes to a place in his head where even a cookie won't coax him out; it takes picking him up and moving him from that "place." Yesterday, he went to that place, but to pout. Tom was out of the house. Jake was sure he heard him and wanted to go downstairs. I headed the other direction and Jake pouted. This time I just took his picture and waited and the switch flipped and he was happy dog again.

Spreading the wealth

Tom said yesterday that one of the things he loves about me is that I spread the wealth around. That was as we were leaving Mill End, having visited new yarn shop Twisted, and were heading to Lowe's.

A little yarn
Twisted just opened on Friday in northeast Portland. I've actually been very good about yarn, having not "invested" since pre-Scotland. It's my duty,however, to visit all yarn shops in the area at least once (I haven't been to Hillsboro or Gresham, though). Since we were out and about, I thought I needed to check out the new store. It's a nice little shop with probably the best display of Noro of any store I can recall. They have a good selection of unusual fibers (including soysilk, corn and banana fibers) as well has interesting handpainted yarns. Their stock of what I call "basic" yarn (solid color wools and cottons in all weights) is extensive. In the end I found a Merino/Tencel blend and chose a color that is new to my stash.

A little fabric
I've cut out and sewn up the ugly fabric and I'm quite pleased with the fit of the pants, having adjusted the pattern using my trouser moulage. As soon as I add the ribbing, I'll post a picture. It was the ribbing that prompted the stop at the Mill End store in Milwaukie. We always look at dog fabrics (their selection was meager, at best), but Tom did spy some Scooby Doo fabric that he liked.


And finally, the Home Improvement store
The strips for the convertible wrap are done, but I was having a bugger of a time matching up the loops to crochet together (my yarn is floppier than the demonstration on Knitty Gritty) so we bought a couple of dowels to thread through so I can see each successive loop. Now aren't dowels an exciting purchase?

Variety

In my trusty little camera, there were quite a variety of different pictures from this past week.

Mom projects
The reknit of the bodice and sleeves for my mom's peasant top (aka her Christmas present) is complete.








And here's the progress on the dressing gown. I haven't heard back from Martingale press and haven't had the gumption to figure out the collar on my own. It's now the first 2007 Christmas present, so I'll wait to see if the publisher responds before I put the extra brainpower into the collar and edgings.







Walks
On one of the sunny days, I set off with my iPod and camera and marveled at the neighborhood colors.
      
      


The Safeway in Lake Oswego gives a 50% discount on prescriptions for pets, so that's where we go to get Cody's meds. When we had to pick up some puppy pills, we decided to park out and walk through downtown Lake Oswego, something we really haven't done. On our way we met up with some very confident ducks, sharing the pond with some concrete birds.
  

WIPs
In two weeks we are heading across the pond to Scotland. Because American has canceled their Chicago-Glasgow flight, our 10 hour travel time out is now 16 thanks to two layovers instead of one. Coming back will be worse, since we will layover at O'Hare for 4 hours. That's a lot of knitting time. So I've been trying to figure out what to take. (The most important part of trip planning, in my book, is the "activity bag.")

I've decided to resurrect the Sasha skirt. I started it last May, made some progress, then pulled it out because it was just going to be too small. Today, I'm about where I was before I restarted, which is here. Coincidentally, the page also has the original version of the peasant blouse.

My carry around project is another long-term (though not quite as old) project. When I received Victorian Lace Today, I was enamored with all the lovely lace, but overwhelmed with the choices. In January, I decided to try the Spider Net shawl. Try being the optimum word. In my two or three previous attempts, I kept running afoul of the pattern and had to restart. Finally, on the trip to San Francisco, I got the pattern in my head and here's where it stands. The yarn is stash Artisan NZ Merino lace yarn (300m to 20g - really lacy).

And through the power of suggestion, I have started an Elann lace shawl as part of the Elann Shawl Knit-a-long. When Lisa W invited me to join, I thought about all the lovely yarns in my stash and decided to do join. Then I had to decide on a pattern and shop my stash. In the end I settled on the Luna Moth Shawl and some Just Our Yarn Zen, a silk/cashmere yarn I found at Stitches West 2006. Very soft. Here's my progress.