Fiberly One

I have said I am highly susceptible to the power of suggestion, which is probably why I have so many books and a very large yarn and fabric stash. It’s also why over the years I’ve dappled in papercrafts, beading, polymer clay and weighted weaving, in addition to sewing and knitting. I have also crocheted—but only to finish knitting.

A little weaving
April’s birthday is at the end of the month and my first thought for April revolved around some Cherry Tree Hill Baby Sachet ribbon yarn and trying to come up with something I could do quickly, so I set up my handy-dandy frame that Tom made for me and set to weave a scarf. I spent a day on the project and I like how it looks, but it’s so loose a weave, I just don’t think it’s really practical as a scarf for a busy mom of two boys, so…

Something new
Here’s where the power of suggestion comes in: a year or so ago I was pointed to the Stitch Diva Studios site, where I saw a very cool skirt. It was made with hairpin lace and I toyed with the idea for a day or so, but wrested myself from the temptation…until last week, when Knitty Gritty aired a segment with Jennifer Hansen. After seeing how straightforward the technique was (having a really good presenter makes a big difference), I headed to the site, ordered a loom and the skirt pattern. As an aside, it is noteworthy to point out that the looms are made by Jensen Woodworking which is located in—you guessed it!—Oregon.

I thought I’d start with something simpler as a gift, so here is April’s convertible wrap (a free project from Stitch Diva) in progress. It’s Madil Apache, a wool blend ribbon from my stash. Once I got the rhythm of the process (Jennifer has a great tutorial on the Stitch Diva site) I breezed through the first two strips. There aren’t a lot of patterns available yet, but the ones I’ve found are different and interesting, including those on Stitch Diva and Oat Couture.
 

Progress
And I’m still working on the Sasha skirt.

What to do with ugly (but “free”) fabric
Well nothing is really free, but I didn’t pay anything extra for it. I like Fabric Mart and was lured to their site by a “last chance” email. There were two fabrics that I really wanted, so I put them in my shopping cart, and thought “Just a few more dollars and I can take advantage of their free yardage offer.” When I got the order the first thing I saw was this fabric. Did I order that? Digging into the box and looking at the packing slip, I realized that it was one of the “free” fabrics that I received even though I didn’t actually receive all I’d ordered. Of course the two I really wanted someone else wanted before me.

I’m in the process of matching fabric with patterns and this unattractive fabric will make a great “muslin” for some knit pants. Who knows? Maybe it will look better as a garment, than as a flatfold of fabric.

…And there are shirts to sew for Tom…I’d better get off this computer…

In addition geek-stuff and celebrating 49 years, I’ve managed a few fiberly endeavors.

Luna Moth shawl

Before we left on the trip, one of the Elann Shawl Knit-a-long-ers asked for a detailed picture of the Luna Month Shawl.

From the camera
I started the Fiber Trends Möbius scarf before the aforementioned trip, and finished it while spending time with Cody, so it’s been done for a while, but languishing on the SD card.

If it’s June…
There must be a new shirt for Tom.

Something new for someone new
Today I’m meeting Michelle’s daughter and gifting her with a summer outfit, just in time for a cooler day.

And something not-fiberly
We had our nice birthday dinner on Friday because on Thursday we were invited to a reception at the Oregon Humane Society honoring the top three Doggie Dash teams. It was our first visit and we were very impressed with the organization and facility. And not just because we received a certificate.

Just back from my official birthday dinner at a new restaurant in the Willamette Falls neighborhood here in West Linn. L & B’s Restaurant & Gallery opened in October and we found out about it in one of the coupon flyers we got in the mail. The ad showed a more upscale restaurant than any other in the city, so we decided to try it out. Good choice.

We were greeted by Jennifer, who also turned out to be our excellent server. The menu is fairly extensive. We were tempted by the tomato roasted red pepper soup, intrigued by the roasted radish soup du jour, but opted for crispy calamari – very light and tender served with a spicy marinara sauce.

The entrée choices were variations on typical “American” restaurants with a chicken, several fish, steak and port options. Tom chose the cioppino, which, though a little salty, he enjoyed. But I think I had the best with the special tilapia – not normally a fish choice I’d make. It was served lightly pan fried, topped with a caper relish served over risotto with a lemon beurre blanc sauce. Yum!

We tried their crème brulée and strawberry rhubarb crisp. I love custard. This brulée, was a little creamy for my taste, but good. I will forever miss Harrison’s version of the dessert, which I enjoyed, for the last time, a year ago, and they closed unexpectedly two weeks later…but I digress… Tom liked the crisp, but liked my brulée better.

We will go back.

No website and not much online coverage yet, but they are located at 1717 Willamette Falls Drive, West Linn (503) 722-9561.

It’s been almost two weeks, but I’ve finally processed the pictures we took at the Dragon Boat Races during the Portland Rose Festival. Our original plan was to cheer Dianne and John on as the Realty Trust Red Dragons participated in their second year, but we missed the first day because we were sure they wouldn’t run the races at the same time as the parade. Wrong!

But we did make it to see them in their quarter-final and semi-final heats, along with Jean. It was a lot of fun!
 

More pictures are here.

It bears mentioning that between the races we had lunch at the European Divine Café—because pea soup I had was delicious (and not just because I was hungry), while Tom and Jean both seem to enjoy their gyros. The service was very slow, but it appeared to be a “mom and pop” shop with only three people working there. Perhaps they weren’t quite prepared for the Dragon Boat race crowd.

That’s the number of years I have been in this world. Today is my birthday. A friend wrote to remind me that since it is the longest day of the year, I have even more time to enjoy it.

Tom and I just got home from a walk in the Nob Hill neighborhood of Portland, after a nice lunch at Wildwood Restaurant (I ate too much, but it was good—especially the strawberry shortcake.) In an earlier life, when I really loved to shop, this would have been a great shopping trip because, with a couple of exceptions, all the shops were small and local.

Now, one of the advantages of a June birthday is that there are three birthstones: pearl, moonstone, and alexandrite. On one of our first of many walks to come, Tom told me he thought I should have a new ring for our 25th anniversary in August. I’m really not a big jewelry girl, but he’d planted the idea, so off I went looking at rings on the internet. The diamonds didn’t really appeal to me, but the thought came into my head that it would be different to have an alexandrite. I figured we’d be looking for a long while to find something since it’s not a stone that everyone knows, much less has in their collection. I was wrong. Dyke Vandenburgh Jewelers had a ring on their site (and still do in their gallery) that was just what I had in my head. Thus, the anniversary ring became a birthday AND anniversary ring.

I’ve actually been enjoying my gift for a while, but thought I’d wait till June to share the story of my alexandrite. The wonder of the stone is that it changes colors in different lights. A professional photographer, I’m not, so I couldn’t quite capture the brilliant color differences as well as I’d like, but here’s a look. On the left it’s purply-red in indoor lighting. On the right it’s more of a blue-green in natural light.
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Crystal Palace Mikado Ribbon Shell Mix, color 7297

Found it!

The moral of the story is make sure your calculations are correct in the amount of yarn it will take to make something or finish the darn thing when there’s a chance you can find more yarn. I thought I’d done the calculations correctly, but obviously did not because I’ve come up one ball short (probably one-half) in trying to finish Grumperina’s original Tivoli (now Picovili) top. That was two years ago. On a fit of finishing UFOs (thanks, in part, to Dianne’s gentle hints), I pulled out the top and started knitting away.

So-o-o…please check your stashes. Do you have a ball of Mikado Ribbon Shell Mix? Is yours on the pinky side? Are you willing to part with a ball? If you can answer yes to these questions, please send me an email or post a comment. (I’m not expecting a perfect match, but would just like pink instead of khaki.)

It’s not that the two subjects are related in any way; it’s just these are the next batch of pictures from the camera.

Though Mandy likes food, it isn’t her main motivator. She’s easily distracted by – well just about anything. We call her our short-attention-span dog. Or said another way: she has the attention span of a gnat. But on this night Mandy was a good dinner-dog.

Continuing with the spring flower theme, and since today is the last day of spring, here is some more color from our yard.
 

Usually I’ve been pretty good about processing pictures off the camera, but I think I must have waited because I knew the last pictures of Cody were on the card. Over the next few days, I’ll be processing and posting as I get done.

May 28, 2007
Cody Rests

Mandy waits

Warning: only a mention of fibers and dogs, otherwise this is, in fact, geek-stuff.

While trying to sort out why Google didn’t find all the newer pages with Cody, I read that spiders don’t particularly like frames. A lot of people don’t like them, including me. But I had discovered an included script in Photoshop that would reduce a folder of images to thumbnail size and put the lot into a web page with – you guessed it – frames.

So after some manual changing of the web pages to put in my colors, backgrounds, etc. I created my own version of a content management system using FileMaker, making it much easier to update TheHudsons site.

But spiders don’t like frames, so I had to figure out how to take all 1200 of the pages that are in frames and take them out. And I did. It took some significant data manipulating, several FileMaker databases and days, and learning about CSS, but it’s done and I can move on to more fiberly endeavors.

The content most of the pages haven’t changed, but the look has. Check it out.

I’ve just posted changes to the Oregon and Portland yarn shops files:

Intuitivity in Yachats closed 7/16/06
Cozy Ewe in Oregon City will close their doors 6/15/07
Twisted in Portland will open their doors “soon”
Happy Kampers Yarn Shop in Florence has been added
Giggling Stitch Knit Shop moved from Carlton to McMinnville

If you have any other corrections/additions/deletions to any of the Yarn Shop files, let me know.