An Afternoon in Oakland

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

People, Places and Things

New Post at Fiberly One's New home:
People, Places and Things

February

New Post at Fiberly One's New home:
February

Mile High Lace Knitting Conference

I believe this was the second such conference and it was quite intimate and small, which I quite enjoyed. Perhaps had I known it wasn't as big as even Madrona Fiberarts, I might have signed up for more of the non-class activities, but there were meals to be had with friends, so it was all good.

In the end, I did not take the class I had been looking for, but took Intarsia Lace from Galina Khemeleva thinking that maybe she could convert me to like intarsia if it were lace. Nope. I didn't even finish my sample swatch. But I did learn some new skills and enjoyed the class and instructor.

On Friday, I took Haapsalu Ratik (changed to Haapsalu Sal), knitting a traditional Estonian shawl, from Nancy Bush. I knit a nice little lace swatch, with nups (a new stitch for me) - which I've managed to misplace in all my unpacking and packing - but I did not follow tradition and sew on the separately knit border. While it's good to know the tradition, in my case, I'll probably not embrace the technique. I will, however, purchase her upcoming book Knitted Lace of Estonia: Techniques, Patterns, and Traditions (due out in October), after seeing the book samples and being assured that there were other border attachment options.

Saturday was Knitting Triangle Shawls taught by Evelyn Clark. I had purchased her book of the same title, and figure this was the only way I was assured to read it. I started the Sunshine and Shadows Shawl in class and finished it a few days ago, while in Phoenix. The yarn is Dream In Color Baby Lace that I purchased in Sunnyvale in March.


Adding to the stash
The conference was small and the vendor market was small - only four vendors. But I did manage to find some lovely lace yarn in the Skaska Designs booth. I learned about Yarn Place yarns on that San Jose trip in March, and was tempted by the fibers, colors and value of Touch (cashmere/tencel/merino), Heaven (tencel/merino), and Gentle (wool/cashmere):
 


I also couldn't resist taking home a hank each of Skaska's silk/cashmere and camel/silk yarns, as well as an Australian cashmere yarn.
   

And finally I came home to yarn that Bonnie sent from Japan. I'm pretty sure she bought it because of the brand - Puppy Yarn. It's washi paper yarn made from cotton.

Denver

I was looking for a particular class taught by Galina Khemeleva and happened on the Mile High Lace Knitting Conference in Denver. I'm all about lace AND I graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Denver (more than a few years ago) so clearly I was destined to go. It turned out to be a very small conference held at the Renaissance Hotel across from what was, in "my day", Stapleton International Airport. I won't bore you with how much had changed in places, but it was significant.

Truth be told the knitting was an excuse to look up and see old friends. The visits started on Tuesday when it got to over 80 degrees farenheit and was still 76 degrees as I headed home (the significance of this comes up next) from dinner with Stephanie Brearton. I met Stephanie when we both pledged Alpha Phi at Colorado State. The chapter didn't last, but our friendship did.



I arrived on Monday, but the conference didn't start till Wednesday evening, so I stayed the first two nights at what we've come to call Hotel Shelton, aka Robert and Edith's house. They are the parents of my good friend Mark and I always enjoy spending time there. I don't like to visit someone's house empty handed, but have a hard time thinking what to make men, so I packed a full biscuit "kit", consisting of Oregon ingredients: Bob's Red Mill flour, baking soda, and baking powder, Tillamook butter, and Market of Choice buttermilk (and salt) to make Robert. For Edith, I made Elisa's Nest Tote in Bernat Kitchen Cotton. I knit in the round (taking a cue from a Ravelry-er), left the stitches live and knit on the i-cord for the handles, and it was done in just a few days.


Before I left for my stay at the hotel, I took Robert and Edith to lunch.


The snow flurries began as we left the restaurant, and by evening there was a nice blanket of snow. Gotta love that Denver weather! One June day circa 1979, the week before summer solstice, I was scraping snow off my car onto my cold sandaled feet.

Thursday morning, I enjoyed the snow in the early morning as I drove to meet Linda Williams for coffee.
 

Linda Williams was the senior class president and was consistently one of the nicest people at TJ even to those of us who were bussed in. Our friendship has remained intact and I'm expecting her to visit sometime this year so she can meet her goal of visiting all 50 states by the end of her 50th year. She has Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska to go.



Friday I took advantage of the two hour lunch break and had lunch with Mark Forsyth, my date to the senior prom. Considering we haven't been in touch since we graduated, it was a remarkably fun lunch. Mark is a retired cop, teaching at Regis College in Denver. I asked Mark to the prom and he probably warned me that he couldn't dance, but I chose to ignore the fact, but he was telling the truth. At 17, that was pretty "tragic", but years later it's laughable. We shared only one class (that I know of) - photography, and all I have is the impression of how nice he was. Next month his daughter will marry and he's been told he must dance with her. And he will. He asked me to "dump" the photo I took, so in deference, here's a prom picture.


That evening, the plan was to meet also have dinner with Dan and Dori Hugo and their twin 18-month-old boys, but while the latter were calm and quiet in the morning, when the plan was set, by evening it was decided that Dan would have to meet me solo. Despite the disappointment, Dan and I had a great dinner and evening catching up. It was such a good evening, the camera never came out of my bag. I'm promised a family photo some day.

Saturday evening my good friend Randy Roorda picked me up and we headed for dinner at one of his favorite Mexican Restaurants in Aurora. We met senior year in Mr Miles Sociology class when alphabetically he sat in the desk in front of me. And the rest is friendship history. He's a teacher, who has been off the past year. He says if he doesn't find the right position in Denver he'd like to move to Oregon. We can only hope.

What's going on?

Three weeks ago we all decided that it would be a good idea for my mom to visit us so her realtors could really work on selling her house. The good news is that two offers came in; the bad news is they were really bad offers. So we wait. But having Mom and pooch around has thrown off my routine and I've had less time to spend at the computer. That means all the pictures I've taken are still in the camera and I haven't posted for a while. Sorry about that.

But I have been doing stuff and in the course of the next few weeks, hopefully, I'll get caught up.

Here's a synopsis:
  Dianne's birthday skirt and jacket (sewn)
  One shirt for Tom (now there's a surprise)
  Progress on the Japanese crochet shrug
  Elisa's Nest Tote
  FINISHED Alpine Lace Scarf (and my mom said it wasn't going to happen)

Next week, I'm off to Denver to attend the Mile High Lace Knitting Conference and (another big surprise) eat and drink with friends, including one Alpha Phi sorority sister (didn't know I was in a sorority in college did you?) and three high school friends, including my senior prom date, whom I've not seen since the 10 year reunion.

THEN, after spending some quality time with hubby and two silly dogs, it's off to Chicago for a weekend to meet some Fiberly Friends some of whom I've met, more I have not.

By the way, how did it get to be April already?

Cupertino, San Jose and Scotts Valley

Through in visits to Santa Cruz, Sunnyvale and Campbell and you have our weekend destinations. The trip down to see Jack at Year Round Tax (in Scotts Valley) and Dr Ballentine (in San Jose) was just an excuse so we could

..have coffee with Maria (an hour just isn't enough time)


..deliver the 20-something annual birthday pineapple upside down cake for Bill (never mind that his birthday was last month)


..spend the better part of an afternoon with Chris for the first time in a very long time


..have brunch with Amy and Ron, who at different times took care of Cody and Mandy



..see former neighbors Joe and Connie and check out what's going on with our previous house.
 

It also gave us the chance to visit a new-to-us yarn shop, Purlescence Yarns in Sunnyvale and add to my SABLE.

Yarn Place Graceful Lace - very soft fine wool


Dream in Color Baby Lace Weight Merino wool, in a black that had shades of green, brown and blue


Crystal Palace Maizy - corn fiber and elastic nylon



And stay at the Cypress Hotel in Cupertino for the second year in a row, where we hung out with Spotty the fish. If you can afford the rack rates or get a good promo price (which is the category we fell into), I highly recommend Kimpton Hotels. Their In Touch membership program is all about hospitality. In addition to the fresh chocolate chip cookies they set out for guests every afternoon, as an In Touch member, I always get a note, bottle of water and a snack. If our dogs were good travelers and we weren't flying, we'd brought them to stay with us, since the Kimpton hotels welcome doggy guests. We have also stayed at the Alexis in Seattle (where the notes were hand written) and the Hotel Monaco in San Francisco.



 

Bay Area bound

It's time for our annual trek to San Jose to take care of taxes. It's not that we couldn't just send the information down, but what's the fun in that. (An "no" the trip is not tax deductible—we asked.)

In preparation, I did a little yarn shop research, found a couple of new-to-me shops to try to visit and posted a list of Bay Area Yarn shops on my website.

In addition to the trusty iPod Touch, I'll be taking a Herringbone Stitch Chemo Cap, a free pattern from Fiber Rhythm, I'm knitting in Knit Picks Shine Sport. It's my carry along project so, though it's an easy project, it may be a while before it's finished, since I only will get to it when were waiting for something and I need to keep busy. Or I may get it done while we're away. You never know.
 
And the obligatory lace project: Alpine knit scarf from Victorian Lace Today in Claudia Hand Painted Silk Lace yarn in Pecan.



Tom gets to take a new shirt.

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)