Fiberly One

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!

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)

    

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.

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?

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.
  

I think I really should just turn off my email sometimes. I get an email from a yarn or fabric vendor and off I go. Sometimes the temptations are just too great.

Fabric Mart
I’m thinking the cotton/rayon tapestry would make a nice coat. I’m not quite sure what I had in mind for the embroidered polyester; it was just too pretty to pass up.

Mystical Creation Yarn
I’ve been admiring Mystical Creation Yarn for a while. I’m not quite sure how I ended up on their etsy.com site, but there I was trying to decide among the many, many gorgeous colorways. My lace obsession led me to choose the silk lace yarn in Purple Dream.

The colors, the sheen, and the fact they were on sale were the reason these were chosen. And I have to tell you the pictures don’t do them justice—they are just vibrant.
  

I’ve gone ten days without knitting so far and I have the weekend to go.

Fondle yarn
On the first day of the “prescribed” no knitting, fate played a cruel trick and Mr Postman delivered some Noro yarn I’d ordered from Little Knits.

The pinky/purple Kochoran was ordered to make Marta McCall’s Shoji Screen Wrap that I saw advertised in the Spring Interweave Knits. Turns out Marta is “next door” in Lake Oswego. The bag of Silk Garden was ordered because I just couldn’t resist a sale. I know I should try because my stash is way beyond SABLE, but…

Sew a coat
This is probably a first for me in a very long time. The wool/acrylic co-op fabric AND the New Look 6538 coat pattern were bought and made up in the same month they were purchased. Neither has had time to age in their respective stashes.

Read
I’m not a big reader. I get on jags and read several books and then nothing for months. But I love books and I own more than a few. So I decided to actually read a book about machine embroidery that I bought after I getting my cool new sewing/embroidery machine last year. I haven’t been using it to its full potential.

Today we leave for a long weekend in the Bay Area to visit with friends and visit our tax guy. Normally I occupy airport and flying time knitting, but this weekend I’ll take my favorite recreational reading— dog mysteries, including the latest from Laurien Berenson and Carol Lea Benjamin.

The Shirts
“January” didn’t actually get finished in January due to mechanical problems, but Tom was quite understanding and wore his new Dogs on Hawgs shirt last Thursday. Not wanting to get in the same predicament of (typical of my college study habits…after 30 years, you’d think I’d be better…) trying to get it all done at the last minute, I set out on a pattern cutting marathon. Well, it wasn’t really marathon because it spanned three mornings and I didn’t run 26.2 miles, but I did get shirts cut out of fifteen dog fabrics and the facings and collars interfaced.

Though it’s the same pattern I’ve been using for years, I’m still learning—like pay closer attention to the length of the pattern repeat and order even more extra fabric is the pattern repeat is 24 inches. It’s my own little foible that the pockets MUST match I just couldn’t do it with what I had left in Pip and Pals, we headed to Fabric Depot with pocket template in hand. While we were there we found Firehouse Mascot.
  

The next day, as I was laying out some other fabrics, it looked like I wouldn’t have enough for the sleeves, so off to Mill End I went to find coordinating fabrics. I didn’t (but it’s just as well, because I later found out Tom prefers that the sleeves not contrast). But with a 25% discount coupon in my bag, I couldn’t leave empty-handed, so came home with Terriers Abound and dog fleece.
  

I found some very cute Robots fabric at J&O Fabrics (and had the quickest fabric order turnaround ever–two hours), but it must have been the end of the bolt because I ordered only two yards. Apparently it’s a really old fabric patternd because it took some heavy duty searching to find more but I did—at Wish Upon a Quilt. (At first glance this may not look like a dog fabric, but if you look closely you’ll see a little robot dog at the top of the sample.)

And after creative layout, I did manage to get the sleeves and collars cut from the other fabrics.

A future coat
It wasn’t my plan to buy patterns at Mill End, but glancing at the New Look rack I found two:
  

And the wool/acetate plaid fabric from a co-op buy will be perfect for the coat. I also bought an embroidered duppioni silk—I’m thinking a vest.
  

Enough of this computer stuff, I have sewing to do.

UFOs
Never mind how many UFOs (Unfinished Objects, for the uninitiated) there are in the stash closet. However, soon there will be one less—thanks to Dianne and Suzie and the power of suggestion. When Dianne took Suzie to see my stash, little did I know
that they would go through the bins and bags of UFOs. Dianne came back downstairs and mentioned two in particular—the Tivoli t-shirt I must have started during the summer last year (2005, that is) and the Wavy scarf I started before Stitches West 2006. I remembered the top, but had to go back to figure out what scarf she was referring to.

WIPs
Now the Wavy scarf is a WIP (Work In Progress). I pulled it out Thursday and have knit about two more full repeats of the pattern.

I haven’t given up on the Helen Hamann Twinset, but 200+ stitches of stockinette can get pretty boring.

And then there’s the Seasilk scarf that I have been carrying around for almost six months. It only really gets worked on when I’m waiting or on our Saturday visits to Coffee Rush in Oregon City (today will be our first coffee Saturday in a month—how the holidays can change our routines.)

My mom’s birthday is in two weeks. I have to admit I really didn’t enjoy knitting Tootsie’s last dress and when I took a break I found the Party Dress in Dogs in Knit to knit her, which I’ll send to my mom for her birthday (along with a few other gifties—none handmade, I’m afraid.) It’s knit in KnitPicks Suri Alpaca, a yarn I received in a box of free yarn samples in Fall 2005. Of course one ball wouldn’t do it (just…) so another is on order.

SABLE

My Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy was added to yesterday with the receipt of more dog fabrics for shirts and yarn for the lace projects from Victorian Lace (I LOVE this book!) that are on my to make list. The yarn is Shaefer Yarn “Anne” in colorway “Lousisa May Alcott,” ordered from a favorite online yarn shop, Little Knits.

There were two events that were handled badly by the ship and tended to put a damper on the respective days. The first was associated with our first port of call.

Puerto Vallarta

The ship caught up with the last vestiges of Paul that first Tuesday night, and the ship was really rocking and rolling. We fully understood that any trip will be at the mercy of the weather, so our very late arrival into Puerto Vallarta wasn’t a real issue, especially since the Captain had been very good about communicating his decisions and our progress. Nor was the fact that we had to tender in because the big ol’ Dawn Princess got in before and the second pier was being refurbished. We were even optimistic when we headed to the Mondrian Lounge to get numbers for the tender boats. The cruise director, Eric, informed us that we were further delayed because the port authority had not come out with the pilot boat, so the ship had to fetch him. That was another 30 min. delay. No problem. But that was when the communication stopped.

We happened to be sitting at the window and watching the tenders go out. The first tender left an hour after we’d assembled to get our numbers. It was a tender full of excursion-goers a special overview excursion organized (and I use the word loosely) at the last minute. Ninety minutes later, the first group assembled were called down to the A deck. I wondered if this was the normal (inefficient) process for tendering since an additional fifteen minutes had passed and we were still waiting, so went to ask. I used to work Customer Service, so I do understand that Kelly had to answer to a lot of disgruntled passengers, but I was also a paying passenger and asked politely if this was the normal process. Instead of a simple answer to the question, I got the full recitation of what led to the delay (and a terse “Please let me finish!” when I tried to explain that I knew about hurricane, etc.), but did not get an answer to my simple question till I asked again. My point of this rant is some simple communication would have gone a long way to relieving the frustration. I’m stepping down from the soapbox now.

We did take the tender to shore, but the “bloom” of the port was gone and the humidity was up, so we wandered the shops at the pier and then headed back to the ship.

The entertainment for the evening was Paul Dabek, a young British magician. He knew his magic, but wasn’t really clued into the audience. Tom and I are probably a little jaded when it comes to magic having seen live shows by the likes of Penn and Teller, Harry Anderson, and a lesser known but excellent magician, Ian Kendall.

We returned to the cabin and a cute little elephant.

Mazatlán
The night to Mazatlán was smooth sailing and we disembarked around 9am, wandered to the street and took a taxi to Old Town. We were glad we got taxi because, though all the literature said it was in walking distance from the pier, it would have been quite a walk. It was early, but the humidity was already up.

We made our first purchase on the trip at were two t-shirts Señor Frog’s, but it was early so we didn’t visit the bar.

Across the street I spied a fabric store! It was quite impressive. What really stood out were the beaded and embroidered cottons in some really lovely colors. I probably should have bought more, but I came out only with a wood beaded fabric to make a jacket for my mom and a pretty embroidered batik-y cotton to add to the stash &mdash all six meters for less than US$30.

We wandered the open market, then went into the Cathedral to admire the lovely stained glass.
 

The guide sheet I brought along touted Angela Peralta Theater, so we headed there. It was quite interesting, and located a few blocks away in a less frenzied part of Old Town.

As it heated up, we headed back to the ship for lunch and air-conditioning.

We decided to forego the show put on by the ship’s singers and dancers and instead listened to Harmony Strings over tea and coffee.

The towel animal for the night was a peacock.

Check out more pictures
There are more pictures of our brief stay in Puerto Vallarta and day in Mazatlán on TheHudsons.