Fiberly One

On Monday, I popped down to the Bay Area to spend a little time with Fiberly Friend, Diane. We started with lunch at Caffe 817, a nice little cafe in downtown Oakland.

Next it was to Piedmont Fabrics. Diane had been meaning to visit the shop earlier; I guess that’s why I really flew down. Maybe not. There were some lovely fabrics, including some Liberty cottons. In Lucky magazine, Diane saw a man-tailored shirt in Liberty cotton for $300. Aren’t we lucky that we can sew? We each took some home to make our own shirts for considerably less than $300. Diane suggested we see who gets her fabric made up first. Ha! That will be Diane, I’m sure.

We spied Piedmont Yarn & Apparel as we were looking for fabrics, so did a quick stop there. They had some usual and unusual yarns, including locally dyed yarns, one of which came home with me. It’s fingering weight superwash merino.

Our next stop was for a cookie break at Sweet Adeline Bakeshop. Good oatmeal cookie, but I still like mine better.

Our time was running short, but as fate would have it, I got an email that my flight was running 25 minutes late, so we had time for one more stop.

Now one could got to Berkeley and spend the day looking at everything in Lacis. Instead we spent a half hour and I come home with two cool little notions for my knitting tools bag—a small maginifying glass, since I don’t always have cheaters with me, and a neat little yarn cutter.

The day went by too quickly and to the airport we went. Fortunately OAK isn’t too busy in the early evening, and we able to prevail on the security guy to take our picture.

Good day spent with a good friend.

Before the summer Interweave Knits arrived a couple of weeks ago, I had already picked out a “must-knit” pattern–Annie Modesitt’s Luminarie skirt. KnitPicks CotLin yarn was ordered for another skirt project, but this one seemed infinitely more interesting to knit–and it was.  I love enterlac and lace, and I love skirts, so the pattern had my name all over it. All in all it was a pretty quick knit, since I “knit backwards” instead of purling.
 
 
 

April was the month for starting more thing than I finished. I spent several days deciding on patterns and fabric, laying out fabric and cutting patterns – the part of the sewing process I really dislike, so I do as much at one time as I can stand. The idea was to take one piece of stash fabric and see how much I could make from other stash fabrics that would coordinate.

The first of that effort was this cowl tank from New Look 6470. The fabric is a Fabric Mart purchase from who-knows-when. There was enough for a skirt and, from other fabrics, I cut a different top and a pair of pants.

The realization that Mother’s Day was just a few weeks away prompted me to pull out the beaded fabric I’d bought for my mom on a trip to Mexico. I consulted with my Fiberly Friends, on what kind of pattern to use and decided on McCall’s 5668. It took some days to prepare, since it had to be cut one pattern piece at a time to make sure the beads were placed off seam. Then I had to cut off beads on the sleeve and lower back and sew down any loose beads. I also decided to line the jacket and had to make lining pieces. Here’s there result.

On an episode Knit and Crochet Today, they featured the cutest baby booties that I knew I’d make and the birth of Carolyn’s grandson, The Little Prince, was just the excuse I needed as a diversion from the larger projects on knitting needles.