Flock and Fiber!

Well, after a rather icky day Saturday (broke my laptop; things fell apart at work and I had to go in twice; many pages during the day and overnight), Sunday was rather better. I made good progress on my diagonal silk garden scarf (almost half done!) - though in fairness, I had brought it in to work when I went in the second time Satruday and did a few rows during some dead time (at my desk! Yarn not allowed in the fab!). Here it is modeling in far and near view. I am loving the colors - from pastel to intense, this yarn has it all, mostly in blues and purples with some greens and golds thrown in. It also has really uneven plying, bits of hay and thread, and some knots for joins. All of which I had read in others' blogs... but I think it will be worth it in the end.

Sunday afternoon I dragged Andy not-too-unwillingly to the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival, which was about 25 miles away in the rural area outlying Portland to the south. It was really nice - kind of a cross between a huge yarn and roving bazaar and a county fair. I got to pet a camel! We said hello to many llamas, alpacas, goats, and sheep. We saw lots of spinning, and I fondled lots of yarn and petted lots of roving, and did some stash-increasing. Almost everything has a purpose, either a project in mind or as a gift, so I don't feel so bad. I am not sure what to do with the 100 yards of bamboo that was on sale for $4, though! (I thought about a preemie hat for the 20 hats project, but it's not machine-dryable :( ).


Here are a few quick pics and yarn pr0n for my loyal readers...


Hello, llama!


Mother-daughter alpacas. Nice haircut, mom!

The real reason goats have horns (maybe he's allergic to wool? heh, heh, heh)




Pair of antique spinning wheels for sale. From Germany and Maine!





Amazing colors of roving - I think that's what it called, anyway the really soft fluffy stuff that isn't quite yarn yet. This was just one of many, many vendors, but I didn't take any other vendor pics - I was too busy inspecting the goods!


Prize-winning hand-spun skeins. It was fun to read some of the judges' comments, especially comparing the "novice" and "expert" categories.


Career opportunity?







And finally... stash enhancement /yarn pr0n :)
















Some good sturdy Idaho wool in significant colors, Socks that Rock (Oregon local, of course!), some nature cotton that was only $4/skein (I'm thinking dishcloths), and the aforementioned Madil Eden bamboo. And yep, that's some Oregon coast handmade soap for my swap pal. The nice older lady who makes the soap was a bit bemused by the idea of strangers on the internet sending each other dishcloths and soap, but she was happy to give me tips on what my partner might like.

That's all for now - I still need to blog Japan and SF, argh! Too much to do! But now I'm going to finish watching Monday night football and work on the silk scarf :)

Another weekly dishcloth topic (i.e. Alison tries to resume blogging)

Well, I'm still here :). It's been a hectic week at work since getting back from SF, and I just haven't had the energy to blog. But since both KT and my SIL have updated their blogs a couple of times since I've been back, I feel guilty. And I want to get an entry into the dishcloth swap group for a prize at the end of the swap, so I figured I should answer the question of the week:

When you knit or crochet dishclothes, washclothes or face clothes, what do you use? What size needle or hook? Wood? what type? Metal? Plastic? A specific Brand? Why do you love that needle or hook so much? Is there one you are dying to try? Is there a particular yarn you love and use all the time for clothes? What is so special about it?

Well, since I still haven't made a dishcloth (I am playing with possible patterns for my swappee, but haven't done a full cloth yet), this is hard to answer. In general I am very happy with my metal knitpicks options interchangable circular needles. It's so convenient, having them all in one place. I got some extra 40" cables to make magic looping easier. They only go down to size 4, though, so I got some of their regular circs in smaller sizes. I like the smooth metal, the nice sharp points (except when I have to use my finger to help things along - ouch!), and the very flexible cables. I did see that Knitpicks has a new line of wooden tips for the interchangables, and I am intrigued, but until I have a reason to switch to woodens, I will probably stick with the metal ones.

As far as yarns, I don't have any hands-down favorites yet. I've been knitting up some baby booties for a friend's twins with baby cashmerino, and it's pretty nice! Unfotunately, I finished the boy's set (blue with coral pink designs) on the airplane on the way back from SF. I went to start the girl's set (supposed to be the same colors but reversed) and can't find the blue yarn! I am afraid when I cast off and cut the blue, the ball went under the seat of the plane :(. Oh well, it's not an uncommon brand - time to hit a yarn store!

SF was great - we walked and bus'd all over the place (the Nextbus system, which Andy actually wrote the code for when we lived in Berkeley, was a great help). Ate some yummy food, found a slew of geocaches... and of course I went to two yarn stores. My favorite was Imagiknit. I thought of KT as I perused the whole room of floor-to-ceiling non-wool yarns!

I woke up early this morning wanting to knit (and then nap later on); discovered the missing blue yarn hindering my bootie progress, and so cast on with some Noro Silk garden (I got at Lint's closing sale a couple months ago) for a Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf. If you google this combination of yarn+pattern, you find a ton of bloggers showing off some seriously pretty work. I'm thinking of submitting it to my work's charity auction, though I guess I'd have to figure out copyright, etc since it would be sold (with proceeds going to charity)

Sorry no pictures in this post - we haven't downloaded them from SF yet, and mouse croaked so I'm having to use the darn touchpad on the laptop - doing fancy web stuff is just a pain. Have a great weekend, all!

Mini-vacation and dishcloth topic

I'm blogging from the Portland airport (gotta love free wi-fi) - we're waiting to board our flight to San Francisco, where we'll spend a long long weekend for our 5th anniversary! We don't have many specific plans - dinner at Chez Panisse in Berkeley (where we never went while I was in grad school!), seeing the musical Sweeney Todd, and getting dim sum are about the only things we know for certain. I will definitely be checking out yarn shops - Artfibers looks really interesting, and is only a few blocks from our hotel :)

So over at the dishcloth swap, we are being "incentivized" to blog at least once a week by answering questions about our knitting habits, with posted answers qualifying as entries for a drawing for prizes at the end of the swap. Sounds good to me! Here's this week's topic:

Now that in some geographic locations the weather is starting to turn cooler, do you change the type of yarn(s) you knit/crochet with? If so, what do you now knit/crochet with instead and why? If not, why do you not switch and what do you knit/crochet with?

Well, I haven't been knitting a full year yet, and this is my first fall. I suspect that what I knit will change (looking towards Christmas presents, scarves, hats, etc), but maybe not so much the composition. The idea of wool in summer doesn't scare me, as here in Oregon the summers are at least dry (though they can be hot). It's true, I have been putting off a sweater for Andy because there seemed to be no point to knitting it during the summer, but it's acrylic anyway as wool makes him itch. But I have some wool lined up for other folks' presents. I guess I'm still pretty much a newbie and figuring out what I like to knit with - I'm looking forward to trying some bamboo, chitin, soy, etc yarns just for the fun of it!!


Oops, boarding is starting soon! San Fran, here we come!

Fall into Autumn Dishcloth Swap!

So, I've joined my first online knitting swaparoo thingy! It's for dishcloths, which means I get to go to a yarn store (or several - there are a ton in Portland that I haven't been to yet), fondle some cottons, pick a neat pattern, and knit something up for a swappee by the end of October (staying anonymous as I ask her questions on her blog about what kind of dishcloth she would like, and what other goodies should be included in the package). And someone will be doing the same for me. So to elucidate my dishcloth preferences, here are the answers to the mandatory questionnaire required for the swap:

1. Do you knit or crochet? How long have you been doing it?
I knit, just since January this year.

2. Have you made dishcloths before? Do you use them yourself, give them as gifts, or both?
Nope, never made one, but I've made scarfs, hats, a tank top, a bag... I am looking forward to using them as actual dishcloths/kitchen towels - the ones we have are getting a bit ratty.

3. What's your favorite cotton to make cloths from? What cotton would you like to try that you haven't before ?
Since I haven't made any before, I dunno. My SIL gave me a skein of Araucania 'Pomaire' for my birthday in March, and a I enjoyed making a little lacy bag from it - it's nice and soft. That's the only 100% cotton I've yet used. I'll have to consult experts whether it would be appropriate for a dishcloth. So I'd love to try either the "classic" dishcloth yarns, or anything interesting and unique

4. If you knit, do you prefer circular or straight needles? For all, do you prefer wooden, metal, or plastic needles?
I tend to use circulars - with a fair amount of prompting, my husband got me a set of Knitpicks Options for my birthday (yes, it was a knitty birthday) and I love how smooth the metal needles are, and how convenient they are for doing things like Magic Loop socks. I use them for flat knitting too.

5. What are your favorite colors? Any colors you don't like much?
I'm not big into pastels - I prefer deeper or more saturated colors. Blues and greens are my favorites but I've been known to wear purples and oranges reasonably often. Favorite fall colors - browns, forest greens, dusky blues, crimsons, with accents of bright red and orange. Basically, I like most colors except pastels and maybe neons.

6. What do you like best about Autumn?
When living and going to school on the east coast, this answer would have been easy - the crisp in the air, the feeling of anticipation (new school year, new classes, football season for those of us in the college marching band..), the leaves turning. Here in Oregon, in the workforce, with no school ties - the seasons are more muted, and autumn means anticipation of the rainy season. But after a hot, bright summer, the gathering clouds can feel familiar and comfortable. Mist gathers on the fields in the morning on the drive to work. The lawn greens up. Mount Hood turns bright white (instead of dirty-glacier-grey) after the first rainstorm - but I won't notice for a few days because of obscuring clouds. Apple picking in Hood River. And of course, our anniversary - September 14th, 5 years this year! - starts it off.


7. Pies: Pumpkin? Apple? Pecan? All of em? or No Thanks!
Yum! Any fruit except Pecan - the usual version (mostly corn syrup) is too sweet for me. I especially like a nice spicy apple or pumpkin pie. If both are offered, I'll take a slice of each :) Oh, and as a nice twist, my mom's "apple pie cake". Yum!

8. When you were a kid, were you the one who couldn't wait to get started with school , or the one who overslept on the 1st day?
Heh. I was an academic until 4.5 years ago - college, grad school, the works. I enjoyed school and couldn't wait to get started. And I do miss that, sometimes.

9. Do you celebrate Halloween? (The real key here guys is especially knowing if you have an aversion to the holiday or little goodies/decorations associated with it, given the timeframe of the swap)
We don't usually dress up or party, but we do buy excessive amounts of candy to give away, and then are forced (forced, I tell you!) to eat the leftovers. I have a few Halloween decor type items, but not many. We're not really decor people. Goodies are great, though!

10. If you had to choose just 3 edible 'goodies' to eat for a full year, what 3 would you choose?
Hm, that's hard. Let's categorize: Chocolate, citrus, and what the heck, apple pie cake. So probably dark dark chocolate bars, lemon-mint gelato, and apple pie cake (hot, with cream). Mmmmm.

11. Do you have any pets? Kids? Husbands who seem like kids? ;)
One husband, two cats (they are both bad and good, as most cats are), no kids.

12. If you were to describe a particular yarn that shares traits of your personality, what would it be and why?
Hm, I'm going to stick to yarns I've actually knitted with, rather than just drooled over on the internet. I'd say K1C2's Second Time Cotton (from which I made a tank top) - it's practical, ecologically minded, a blend of natural and manmade (I love nature but I am a scientist by training and an engineer by profession), and comes in some interesting, variegated colors (well, I'm not actually variegated in color, but I like to think I'm interesting :)

13. Do you use your cloths mostly for dishcloths, or as facecloths?
I think I'd use them as dishcloths. Dishtowels, really, though don't feel obligated to knit something long - I am planning to keep a stash of facecloths for guests who like that sort of thing.

14. Favorite Fall Holiday: Halloween or Thanksgiving and why? (Feel free to share another fall memory if you do not celebrate either of these holidays)
Thanksgiving! What could be better than a big, happy family gathering (or the occasional intimate one: just me, hubby, the cats and the turkey) with great and copious food? Halloween candy is nice and all, but having grown up, I can, after all, buy a candy bar any time I feel like it (I think this is one of the clear boundaries of adulthood, when you realize this but also realize that you don't often feel like a candy bar any more).

15. Do you have any allergies or aversions your pal should know about?
I can't wear scented lotions on my face, though on my hands/body is fine and fun. With scented soaps, hands/body are fine, and a few scented soaps are OK on the face, but not if they're heavy or "perfumey". I love bright scents, especially citrus, ginger, and mint. Sometimes vanilla, but only if it's clean and not heavy. Don't tend to like flowery ones or typical perfumes. And I don't do candles :)


Wow, this also turned into quite the treatise (it was supposed to be a break from Japan blogging - part II of that soon, I promise!). Sorry about that!

Travels and yarn in Japan (a retrospective) - part I

Well, I never got around to blogging my Japan trip, and since it was coming up on 2 months ago (July 6-12), I figure I should at least hit the highlights. I'll make this part 1 - most of the knitting stuff will be in part 2... (and, after spending a good few hours blogging this (and eating dinner, and taking a walk, etc, etc - be warned, part 1 is huge!!)

I've already shown the progress that I made on my Cabled Tank Top on the trip, mostly on the 10-hour flights there and back. The other major knitting-related accomplishment, besides tank-toppage on various modes of transportaion, was visiting a wonderful hand-dying yarn store near the factory in the mountains near Mt. Fuji 2 hours outside Tokyo. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Day 1 (Friday) - leave Portland in the afternoon. Fly in plane for 10 hours, knitting and watching movies.

Day 2 (Saturday) - arrive at 5 PM Tokyo time, even though flight was only 10 hours. Yikes, international dateline and jetlag! Take "limousine bus" (really just a bus, with cupholders!) to the Imperial Hotel downtown. Narita airport is over an hour outside of the city, so plenty of knitting time. Eat an energy bar from my backpack stash, and crash by 8PM Tokyo time (4AM Portland).

Day 3 (Sunday - a really really long day and blog post) - my only full free day, in Tokyo. Up around 5, found Andy and my brother on chat, stared at maps and guides, and finally was driven out of the room by hunger. Considered the American-style breakfast at the hotel, but it didn't open for 10 minutes and was expensive; one of my guides said one could always walk into a corner store and get a cheap rice roll for a quick meal, so I set out in search of that, with a brief detour through Hibiya Park across from the hotel, noting the prevalence of feral cats and homeless people just waking up.

I then crossed a couple of streets and found the perfect place for breakfast - much cheaper and more authentic than the hotel. Lots of youngish business people were also grabbing breakfast there.

Fortified with rice rolls (one with a sweetish fish type thing - maybe crab? - and one with rather bland red beans I think) and bottled cold green tea (mmmm!), I wandered around Ginza, the dowtown shopping district, for a while, and then hopped on the subway to go to Asakusa, an "old-style Tokyo" district famous for its temple and, apparantly, its kitchen supply market area.

One of the interesting things about Tokyo is the highly efficient use of space (and relative lack of greenspace in the city from what I could see). Here are a bunch of restaurants underneath the raised train tracks, right around the corner from the AM/PM.

First thing in Asakusa (besides a swell of pride at succesful subway navigation!), I headed across the wafer to the giant turd building (er, HQ of Asahi beer) to find a geocache in the plaza there. Yeah, trans-pacific geocaching!

Then I, along with hundreds of Japanese and a smattering of other tourists, headed for the Sensoji temple. After entering the great old gates, one encounters a huge market of traditional &/or touristy goods and snacks. I picked up a few little things (Tabi socks for the nieces, snacks for me) and wandered towards the temple itself.

I didn't get really great pics of the temple itself (and honestly, too look at it wasn't overwhelming or anything, and since I didn't know the history I didn't stay very long), but here are some snippets of the area around it. Interpretations of cultural or religious symbology should be taken with a huge grain of salt (and hopefully no offence if woefully inaccurate), since I am remembering from a borrowed guidebook and quick searchings on the web.

Burning incence in front of the temple - wave it towards any part of your body that needs healing.

Raccoon-dog god statue in a shrine at the edge of the temple complex.

Dragon shrine, same area

I wandered out of the temple and on the guidebook's suggested walking route towards the kitchen/restaurant supply district. But on Sunday, most of these stores were closed (though I did see the building topped by a giant chef's head!). So I walked further up, and happened to wander into a street fair! It was the perfect place to get a late lunch: a 100-yen (<$1) sausage on a stick, a slice of very juicy watermelon... people warned me that eating in Japan would be expensive, but not at the places I frequented for breakfast and lunch!

I think of all my exploring that day, the street fair was my favorite. It was just great to see the mix of adults, kids, dogs (quite a few small dogs in strollers!), mostly modern but a few in traditional dress, doing the market/festival thing. None of my Japanese colleagues, when I asked them later, knew if there was a specific reason for the the festival.

Some of the other onlookers were also fun to watch!

I got back to the hotel from Asakusa sometime around 3PM (I think), took a short nap and debated whether to go into a different part of the city or hang out in the hotel. Although I was pretty tired from the exploring thus far, since it was my only day in Tokyo, I decided to go see one of the high-rise, crowded, shopping areas: Shinjuku

Not too much to report from Shinjuku - I tried to follow the guidebook's suggested walking itinerary, but was a block off for most of it, and lost my nerve when, at the end of a glowing review of a ramen restaurant, it noted "there is no English sign on the restaurant, but it's the only ramen shop on the block". Great! Now, if only I knew how to recognize a ramen shop!

So, I ended up in a 7-story department store, real old-style compared to the small Macys and Penney's and things in Portland - the 7th floor had several restaurants, so I picked Chinese as we have a dearth of good Chinese food in Portland - and I was tired enough to know I wouldn't appreciate sushi or high-end Japanese cuisine. Then a little more city wandering, then train back to hotel, to bed, and the next day to meet my "sales engineer" who would escort me to the factory in Yaminashi.

Just a few (hah!) brief (hah, hah!) photos of Shinjuku - I'm getting tired of blogging, and this is dragging on!!

I'm presuming this was an anti-war protest, by the train station. Ominous music and video played, there were dudes with megaphones... It was in trying to leave the train station area that I got a block off the walking tour in the guidebook.

Shinjuku, according to Wikipedia, has over 300,000 inhabitants. Many of them ride bikes.

Lawson Station, a convenience store chain I saw all over the place in Tokyo (waves to certain readers!)

Toy food from the children's floor of the department store

I wandered around a big bookstore, but wasn't successful in finding an English language section (have I mentioned that I don't speak or read Japanese?). I did stumble upon the knitting (crocheting? crafting?) section :)

Finally, Shinjuku at night. This is how I'd pictured Tokyo, and while I was glad to have found the neon-crowded part, I was really happy to have explored multiple areas, gotten a teeny feel for some of it, and taken lots of pictures. Unlike my husband, who in multiple trips to Japan a couple of years ago, brought back pics of Tokyo Disneyland from the bus, a toilet (granted, the toilets were pretty cool, and I'll post pics of my own in part II), and the electric kettle in the hotel room:P

Man, what a long blog post. Congrats if you made it to the end! Part II later this week!