Category Archives: Travel

Places I’ve been that inspired me

Sittin’ and Knittin’ in the Sun

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I’ve been silent for a while. Not because I do not love you, but because my husband and I spent a lovely week away at The Sea Ranch with no internet, no phone, no television (well, not for me – he turned on the TV after I went to bed. Okay, I’ll confess to having watched one hour of TV on a Sunday night – 60 Minutes. Sue me.)

I did a lot of this

We went away, as we often do this time of year, to celebrate our anniversary. It was our 14th. So to celebrate, I brought about 14 knitting projects. I am only half kidding. AND I brought a box of beads. But we’ll save that for another post, or I’ll never get done.

Rocky did a lot of this

So here’s what I worked on while we were away . . . . . As you know, three friends are expecting three babies, so I’ve been knitting a lot of baby stuff. On our way to Sea Ranch we stopped at Balls & Skeins in Sebastopol and I bought baby yarn for two projects – one to be determined, and one for this little bed jacket (yes, another bed jacket – three babies, remember?).

Not taken at the Sea Ranch!

The pattern comes from K2Tog, where I work – or used to work (more on that later) and is something Ellen, the owner of the store, took from an old vintage magazine. I don’t know which one, because all I have is a photocopy of the original pattern. It is a pretty good one – tho I made some changes to the border of the sleeves and bottom. It’s top down and has minimal seaming – just under the arms. I’ll share this pattern here in a future post. The yarn is a Filatura di Crosa’s “Zarina Print,” which I liked a lot.

I also continued to work on the Baby Wrap Sweater  from Churchmouse Yarns and Teas. I finished the blue one I was making with Madeline Tosh Sock and Koigu, and began a second one:

Baby Wrap #2

Now, don’t ask me what the colored yarn here is. I can’t remember. I can’t find the tag, which was black. It is a super wash sock yarn I probably bought at Imagiknit. The green is the beautiful “Tenacious” yarn in color “Vivid” from Sincere Sheep, purchased at the trunk show dyer Brooke Sinnes did at K2Tog.

Taffy did a lot of this

You know, we had a whole week, so I took a couple of projects I’ve been putting off working on, either because they involved too much brain power or they were too boring so I’d have to be distracted by the view. Let’s talk about the easy one first. My friends Rachelle and Matt are really excellent, largely self-taught knitters and I love when they come into the store – they are always excited and upbeat about knitting. No whining! A while ago Matt decided he wanted to try and knit himself a tie and I helped him pick out a yarn (Claudia Handpaints Cotton Ball) and said just make a simple stockinette stitch tie, and slip the first stitch of every row so it won’t curl.

Fast forward a few weeks and he comes in with this pretty tie – except its more like a pretty blue tube. He blocked it, he sent it to the cleaners to be blocked – still a tube. I felt bad because this wasn’t cheap yarn and I guided him to it. So I said let me try something. I took it to Sea Ranch, unravelled a corner and began knitting it again on a size 6 needle. After a few inches, I wet blocked it and . . . .

Hope this is flat enough

I suspect Matt was using too small of a needle and was not slipping the first stitch of every row consistently enough.

Now for the hard stuff. At Stitches West this year, I bought the pattern for Lisianthus, a gorgeous shawl by Rosemary Hill. I had just the yarn – a skein of A Verb for Keeping Warm‘s beautiful lace silk yarn. But the pattern wants you to start in the round – not easy if puppies are gonna jump in your lap or the phone might ring. Perfect for figuring out at Sea Ranch.

BITCH BITCH BITCH

WHAT A BITCH THIS LISANTHUS IS!!!! But I got it started . . .

BIGGER BITCH

I also worked a lot on my Fickleknitter/Zen Yarn Garden KAL Mystery Shawl. I cannot overemphasize how great this yarn is. I am really loving the pattern, too. So far there are four clues, or parts. I just finished clue 3 and now am going on to the border.  Buy this yarn and this pattern when they become available. I’ll save pictures for this baby for another post. This one is too long as it is.

Terry did a lot of this

Knitting All Over the Map

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It’s as if I have suddenly developed adult ADHD. For the last four days or so I knit on this thing, then I knit on that thing, then I go to a completely different thing. And all the while I have this almost uncontrollable urge to start ANOTHER new project – Michelle Miller’s August Pansy Shawls, which she was kind enough to give me as a present a couple of weeks ago. The only reason I didn’t immediately start that one then was it calls for a 6 and I own ONE SET of Signature Stiletto lace point needles and they are sixes AND THEY’RE ON ANOTHER PROJECT RIGHT NOW DAMMIT.

Meanwhile, there are THREE babies coming to my immediate circle of friends and I have all these baby clothes and toys patterns I am obsessed with. WHAT IS A NEUROTIC KNITTER TO DO, I ASK YOU?

Sigh. So as you can see, there was nothing else to do but buzz like a bee from one ongoing project to the next to the next to the next.

Okay, so all there is to do is confess to my knitting binge and show you the results – most of them still works in progress. Here goes . . . .

Baby Wrap Sweater

About 5 years ago, my husband and I spent a week in Seattle where he had a meeting. He met all day, I walked all over the city and on one particularly day of fabulosity I took the ferry to Bainbridge Island and made my way to Churchmouse Yarns and Teas. What a great store! I bought several skeins of yarn – can’t remember too clearly what at this point – and some vintage buttons. And I admired two patterns, both free with purchase of yarn (at that time – not sure about that anymore). One was for a pair of Welted Fingerless Gloves , which I did buy the yarn for at the time and have since made multiple pairs of, and one was for the Baby Wrap Sweater, a baby kimono made with two colors fingering weight yarn, one solid and one variegated. This is the power of models in the shop – I had no baby, no one I knew was expecting a baby, my kids were still kids – but I had to knit me that cute, clever baby kimono. They were kind enough to give me the pattern even though I did not buy yarn for it specifically (I did, how ever, buy other yarn – moral of the story is don’t expect yarn stores to just hand you over their hard work for nothing, please). Now I have THREE babies coming, and I dug out a skein of Madeleine Tosh Sock in color way “Mansfield’s Garden Party” (which I bought in Bethesda, Md. last month) and two skeins of a beautiful denim blue Koigu my friends gave me as a birthday present. THEY WERE PERFECT TOGETHER. And look at the results.

Mansfield's Garden Party, left, and Koigu

Rock Island Shawl

Next is Jared Flood/Brooklyn Tweed‘s Rock Island Shawl. Now, I started this lovely little project, oh, maybe a year ago, and grew quickly frustrated and bored with it and put it down. The pattern starts by asking you to work the lace border first, so you knit on about 14 sts for what seems like 100 yards. Its 71 pattern repeats of 8 rows – you do the math. But the yarn I got – “Nymph” by Golden Fleece - is so de-luscious I was drawn back to it when I came across it in an old knitting bag a few weeks ago. I finally managed to finish the border, and I have to admit I have really enjoyed knitting on this since then. You pick up and knit a poop-load of stitches along the border, then work a few rows of garter, then a lace chart that is really beautiful. I spent much of Sunday sitting on my hiney-ho in the backyard listening to a book and working the chart. Now it’s just garter til I get down from 261 sts to 11. It’s TV knitting.

Damn endless border

Now, again, this is just garter stitch. Knitters who know me know I say “I hate garter stitch.” Obviously, I do not – but I am only now discovering that. It’s nice, after 8 years of knitting, so come back to the foundation, back to the stitch I first learned and mastered. It is soothing. And I can knit garter stitch while I read.

Rocky, of course, is not happy when I knit. Sometime he takes his left paw (yes, he’s literally a southpaw) and bats at it. Sometimes stitches come off the needles. Sometimes there is cursing. Always there is snuggling.

No knitting, mama!

All right, those are the only two projects I’m confessing to at this moment. There are a couple more – most notably the Fickle Knitter – Zen Yarn Garden Mystery KAL I signed up for and am in the early midst of. As soon as I have something that can be seen in a picture, I’ll post it here.

Washington DC – Working and Even a Little Knitting

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Cherry Blossoms!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been away for a bit on a five-day work trip to Washington DC. When I wear my big-girl pants, I am a reporter for Religion News Service where I cover atheism and other nonbelievers. This past week, atheists had their largest ever gathering on the National Mall, where they made their numbers and their wants known at The Reason Rally. The day before, the Secular Coalition for America sent 280 nonbelievers out to lobby their Congressmen and women in their offices. And on Sunday and Monday the American Atheists held their convention in Bethesda, Maryland. I was there for it all, even standing in the pouring rain for 4 hours and trying to report under an umbrella – not easy. You can read my coverage of the Reason Rally here. My story on the lobby day is in the works. I was also interviewed briefly about the scene at the Reason Rally on NPR’s “On Point.” This was a first for me and I was NERVOUS! If you listen, you’ll hear me make up a word for “humanize,” which I could not think of. It comes out “de-demonize.” Sheesh. Thank God I write and not talk for a living.

So! When I arrived in DC it was about 85 degrees and the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. It was really muggy – I had forgotten about that special east Coast mugginess – a combination of dirty water, car exhaust and a sooty grit you can feel on your skin. ICK. Hit me at the Metro station just outside the airport.

When I wasn’t following atheists around, I was having drinks and/or dinner with friends and colleagues in the DC area. I had only a couple of hours on Friday afternoon to wander, and I walked from the Capitol to the RNS offices in the National Press Building. On the way, I passed the Newseum. I have never been to the Newseum and have always really wanted to. The Newseum gives us reporters hard-ons. What can I say? But I only had about 10 minutes, so I only got to go to the gift shop, where I snagged a coffee mug that says, “Trust me, I’m a reporter.” Now I have to take up drinking coffee, I guess. The inside of the Newseum will have to wait, but I got another woody looking at the outside:

The outside of the Newseum

Can you see why? First and foremost, it has the First Amendment CARVED into the side of it. Imagine this in another country. They don’t even have something like the First Amendment’s protection of the press and speech in Great Britain. This gives me chills, seriously. I love this. And my whole vocation is right there in that carving – free speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion. It’s what I do. I love it. Second, look along the sidewalk. See the row of frames? These are the day’s front pages of newspapers from every state in the nation. Made me tear up. I am serious. A whole museum dedicated to the art of collecting news and telling others. Wow.

But I digress. Let’s see. OH yes, this blog is about knitting. So, what did I knit on this trip?

I really debated on what knitting to take. I didn’t want anything too taxing on the brain, so something with charts was out, and I wanted something I could pick up and put down quickly when I was at the AA convention, in case I suddenly needed to take notes or a picture. So I chose to take “Citron,” a free pattern from Knitty by Hilary Smith Callis that’s been out there awhile but that I had not knit. It is all stockinette and looked too boring for me. But for this trip, it was perfect. I chose a ball of Madeline Tosh “Prairie” in color way “terra verte” I bought at Knitterly in January and off I went. I didn’t even need stitch markers.

Citron is kinda neat. It has a tab cast on, which I know well from all the triangle shawls I have done, and it grows by 24 stitches every 10 rows. Easy. And addictive! I knit a lot on the plane out, then only a few rows each night until I went to the AA convention – then I knit like a fiend through most of the sessions. And I knit all the way across the country on the flight back. Here is a terrible picture of it still on the needles – it does not do the color justice. It is a black background with bits of green. It reminds me of malachite:

My Citron

I did another fun, knitting related thing while I was in DC. Just after my NPR interview I had about an hour to kill and Google told me there was a yarn store about 4 blocks from my Bethesda hotel, so off I went to Knit and Stitch, a local yarn store on Bethesda Avenue.

What a nice store! It is on the second floor of a little brick building and there are little paintings of cats chasing yarn balls and each other as you come up the stairs. You go through a little door and you are in a cool, white-walled room lined with yarn with a big project table in the middle, set just in front of the cash register. Yarns are neatly displayed in white-lined cubbies along all four walls, and books and patterns are arranged neatly in a little separate space at the back. There is a classroom – not in use when I was there – and a general atmosphere of fun and creativity. Sale associates Ann and Joanne greeted me very pleasantly and asked me a bit about K2Tog, where I work.

I spent a good 20 minutes shopping there. What to buy? Just having been to Stitches West and working in a yarn store, I didn’t really need anything. But I like to support all LYS and I also like to buy yarn when I travel as a souvenir.

Knit and Stitch, Bethesda

My first selection was easy. They had Madeline Tosh sock in color way “Mansfield’s Garden Party,’ a color way I have used in DK weight to make a spiffy hat. I bought that to make another Baby Surprise Jacket for Kevin’s and Grant’s coming babies. And then I checked out the Habu.

I have never bought Habu before. I have always been frustrated and intimidated by the vast selection and the weirdness of some of the fibers – paper, copper, etc. But perhaps because Knit and Stitch did not have a HUGE selection of Habu and perhaps because I was on vacation and perhaps because I was more than a little relieved at not having said a four-letter word during my NPR interview, I felt adventurous. So I got a cone of a lavender laceweight “yarn” made from linen and stainless steel (!!!) and another little ball of a darker purple with a texture that is made from paper. My idea is to make a Summer Flies with beads that will – hopefully – look like a cobweb. I am very happy with my purchases and loved this yarn store. If you’re in Bethesda, go – it’s 4 blocks from the Metro.

Here are more Knit and Stitch pictures . . . .

Stair Kitties!

 

Ann, center, Joanne, left

 

Yarn!

 

 

My haul

 

The Haul – Stitches 2012

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I have not written a post in too long. I got very, very sick after Stitches and was down for a whole week with the worst case of bronchitis I have ever had. I kept thinking, “Tomorrow I’ll feel better and I’ll do some writing,” but I didn’t feel better until last Sunday. Since then, I’ve been playing catch-up with work and housekeeping (ugh). I didn’t even do much knitting while I was sick – my head hurt too much. So I’m catching up there, too.

Which brings me to today’s subject - STITCHES WEST 2012. I look forward to this thing all year and I save my $$ and we stay overnight and we have drinkipoos all day in the bar and we go out to dinner and we spend money and just generally get in trouble. It rocks.

So here’s a picture of my haul. I did, literally, throw it on the floor and roll around in it. No, I was not naked . . . .Alas.

Now, you’ll notice a couple of things. First, I like skinny yarn. I don’t think I bought anything bigger than fingering. Second, I like jewel tones in the purple/blue/green category. Third, I bought a lot. HEE HEE. Well, I had been saving the $$ I got for selling the pattern for my Revidere Shawl to Claudia Hand Paints. And I think I put it to good use.

So, my first stop, as always at Stitches, is the Blue Moon Fiber Arts booth. I am always at the door on Friday at 10 a.m. when the thing opens and I still have to push my way into the crowd at this booth. This time I got two skeins of lightweight “Socks That Rock” in the Nodding Violet color way, one for me and one for my friend Sara who could not go to the show. Then I got two skeins of their “Marine Silk,” a fingering weight fiber of silk, merino and sea cell. You cannot believe how soft it is and the color just seems to float on it. I got it in color ways “Smokey Mountain Morn” and “Sky Blue Pink.” Delicious. Nutritious. Knitablicious.

From Blue Moon Fiber Arts, it’s a quick dash to Lisa Souza, another favorite of mine. This year, I did not buy there, tho I saw many goodies I wanted. I am in the middle of a big Aeolian Shawl made with Lisa’s gorgeous silk in color way Sedona, bought at last year’s Stitches, so maybe this is what held me back. I need to finish it – I only have about 20 rows left and I need to get on it. Next year, Lisa, next year!

Then it was quickly on to Knitted Wit and Sincere Sheep, which had booth just across from each other – so cool. Just two nights before, Lorajean Kelly of Knitted Wit had given a presentation at K2Tog, and Brooke Sinnes of Sincere Sheep was there, too, to talk about their new yarn club, Among Friends (which I must remember to sign up for!). Their booths were so attractive!  Lorajean had been so swamped with our K2Tog customers at our event that I put off buying from her til Friday, and I had my eye on her “Cashy Wool,” a blend of super wash, cashmere and nylon. Guess what color I got? Orchid! This joins the skein of her “Shine” I have in my stash, already wound up and about to go on the needles for something, something, something.

A quick walk across the aisle and I was in Sincere Sheep. At the Interweave show, I bought a skein of Brooke’s “Keen,” a blue-faced Leicester fingering that I LOVED working into Michelle Miller’s “Flambe” shawl. I had to have another skein, this one in a plum-color called “Brocade.” I also got a skein of “Agleam,” a super wash merino and tencel fingering blend. And be proud of me – this one is a green-blue combo called “Suerte.”

Check out Brooke’s lovely booth:

So let’s see, from there I went to Fickle Knitter Designs to see Michelle Miller, who also

appeared at K2Tog the Wednesday before Stitches. Michelle specializes in lace patterns for one-skein projects, usually made with luxury yarns, and she had a new pattern I wanted, called “Ballerina.” While I was there, she and her helper, Andrea (I think this is right, I am terrible with names!) showed me some yarn by Teresa Ruch that they were selling as one of Michelle’s patterns, “Bird of Juno,” is made with it. OMG this is 100% tencel lace weight yarn in the most vibrant jewel tones. And best of all it’s only $20 for 520 yds. I bought two in Michelle’s booth – the turquoise and the red you see at top –  and made a beeline for Ruch’s booth at the back of the show. WOW! I love her yarns! I bought another skein – making a total of 3 skeins of TR tencel for me! – in a beautiful fuchsia with undertones of purple. You won’t see this in the pic above of my haul because IT IS ALREADY ON THE NEEDLES. I cast on for a Haruni Shawl for the class I am teaching next week. It is a great knit – lovely hand feel and the color just wows me. Never knit with 100% tencel before and have to say I am now a fan.

I bought a few non-yarn items, too. At A Verb For Keeping Warm, I snagged a great Romi pattern for a lovely lace shawl called “Lisianthus.” Looks hard, but as I have two skeins of AVFKW silk lace weight, I wanted and needed it. Romi was there selling and she was a doll. I also bought 4 spools of Artwire to knit with so I could make some earrings Romi designed for Knitty. I already made one, but you’ll have to wait for another blog post to see that. This one’s getting LONG.

There were many other things I wanted, but did not buy. There were many things in Claudia Handpaints I wanted, and I was overwhelmed by the gorgeosity to be found in the booths of  Miss Babs, Little Red Bicycle and Anzula. But those will have to wait to next year. I better design another pattern to sell!

Knitting at the Sea Ranch

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Two weekends ago, my husband and I had the great pleasure of getting away for three nights to The Sea Ranch, a small coastal community in Sonoma County, just south of the Mendocino County border. Over the years, we’ve been fortunate enough to go there more times than I can count, and this time we were celebrating my birthday earlier this month. And this time we took the dogs!

Taffy, left, and Rocky, right

For three days, we did nothing but eat, sleep, drink good wine and romp on the beach with the dogs . . . .

Something interesting!

And knit. Did I mention knit? I came with TWO bags full of knitting – as if I could finish every project I have on the needles! – and over the course of the weekend, I dug in. I brought new things I was working on (like my plain old sock for my sock class) and things that have been on the needles WAY too long (like that damn &$c#ing whale hat from “New England Knits“ that Sheri and I started in 2010!)

The weather was iffy – good on Fri, great on Sat, dreadful on Sun (think of the weather while the 49ers got beat by the Giants) and good on Monday. Mostly, we hunkered down in front of the fire, Terry on the sofa, me in a rocking chair, the dogs sacked out on top of each other, and watched the surf and the sky.

My downstairs perch

So what did I work on?

First was the aforementioned whale hat. I have nothing against whales, I have nothing against hats, but man, I am not a fair isle knitter. Color work just is not my thing. Working with two strands of yarns is just a little too fiddly and too slow for me. Nevertheless, well greased with pinot noir, I persevered. I did half of what you see here during the weekend.

Spouting whales will dance across my head

 

 

 

When I absolutely could not stand this one minute more, I moved on to my Aeolian Shawl, made with Lisa Souza silk lace, that I have written many blog posts about. But the cool thing to know here is this house has a loft. You climb up a ladder – no doggies can follow – and you sit in the window and watch the waves roll in and the stitches roll out.

View from "The Knitting Loft"

 

 

 

But wait, there’s more! I also spent some time with a sweater I started months ago, a simple pattern called Eva from C2Knits that is all stockinette and top down. Everything is done but ONE SLEEVE and yet I cannot get moving on it. I tried . . .

C2Knits

 

 

 

 

I am making this with Madeline Tosh Lace and it is lovely. But never-ending. I must pick it up again this week.

What else did I knit? I made two of the necklaces I wrote about yesterday. I brought but did not touch a sweater I have FINISHED but need to sew together – would rather die, seems like work. And my sock for class . . .

Just the cuff

 

And the rest of the time we did this . . .

Taffy, always on the watch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and some of this . . .

A snoooooooooooze

Thank you, Sea Ranch!

Our Beach

 

OMG Can We GO??? PLEASE??

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Just had the most awful case of the envies after reading this in Knitters Review.

I love Clara Parkes’ description of what makes a retreat so special . . .

Over the course of four days we renewed our connections and made new friends, learned from one another, cleaned out and then enhanced our stashes, told stories, laughed ourselves silly, ate plentiful food we didn’t have to make, and then collapsed each night in a clean bed that had been made just for us. I ask you, what could be better?

Makes me very nostalgic for the days of the old Skein Lane retreats on Tomales Bay. Alas.

Anybody wanna go? I’d almost kill to go.

Interweave Knitting Lab – The Market

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Last weekend, I had the pleasure of going to the Interweave Knitting Lab, which was being held in San Mateo, Calif, just across the bridge from my home in the East Bay, to visit its market. This was the first ever IKL and I suspect from attendance and feedback that I am hearing from friends and customers at K2Tog it will not be the last. Look out, Stitches West! Interweave wants to give you a run for your -and our – money.

I did not sign up for classes. I am not the kind of knitter who learns well in classes. I need a project and a book and quiet. But I did go to the market with four good friends from my long-running Friday morning knitting group organized through Skein Lane. We took my van – lovingly known as “the senior fun bus” (tho I must point out at 47 I was the youngest person on the trip and I wound not describe any of my companions as seniors) and, after a couple of wrong turns, found the hotel and parking.

Cut to the chase – the market, which is what we all want to know about. I must say I was very favorably impressed. Here’s what I liked – the market featured small producers of yarn and patterns and a handful of local yarn shops that brought their best stuff and their knowledgeable sales staff. It is my opinion that Stitches, in recent years, has grown so big and expensive that only the big guys can afford to come and show there. That is well and good – I like to stop with those folks, too. But I get excited and inspired by the smaller producers, and that’s who I gravitate to first at Stitches, tho they are becoming harder to find there (what happened to Snicklefritz, who showed there a few years ago and shoe “Diesel Gnome” yarn is some of the best I’ve ever had? And Asciano, whose lace knitting needles are the best and my favorites? Both of these are local to the Bay Area yet have not been at Stitches West for several years!).

What I did not like was the smallness of the space. Vendors were crammed in and then had (understandably) filled their spaces with as much stuff as they could. This is not necessarily bad – but when IKL classes were out and some very inconsiderate shoppers brought in their baby strollers (DO NOT GET ME STARTED ON BABY STROLLERS AT KNITTING SHOWS) the aisles disappeared. And let’s face it – a lot of knitters are not of the sleek, slender variety. We are real women and need real spaces.

Also, the lighting sucked. You had to go to a window to see color.

IKL - The Take!

But these are quibbles. Really did not effect my absolute pleasure at being there and my satisfaction with what I found and purchased.

SO! Who did I shop from and what did I buy? My first stop was Knitted Wit, where dyer and knitter Lorajean Kelley (aka “Sassy Girl”) sells her lovely dyed yarn. I was very impressed with Lorajean, who stood in her booth knitting from a ouch at her hip and was as cheerful and friendly and charming as you can get. Her enthusiasm for her excellent product created in me a desire I to buy from her – an excellent thing in a vendor. I bought a lovely skein of “Shine,” her fingering weight yarn that is 50% super wash merino and 50% tencel. It has 410 yards and cost $26. Perfect for a pair of socks or a lace scarf or triangle. I’ll let you know. Lorajean also gets my vote for cutest business/postcard, which features a picture of her joyously naked and chubby son rolling around in some of her green yarn. Adorable. Check her out online and at Stitches West, where she’ll also be showing.

I also shopped at Tactile Fiber Arts, where dyer Maia Discoe (do you love that last name?) had her softly luscious yarns hanging on a folding screen of shutters. I chose a 385-yard skein of fingering weight superwash merino in color “Bramble.” It cost $27. As I was paying, Maia said, “You look very familiar to me,” and I echoed that. Turns out she is a K2Tog customer! Maia lives and works in Richmond (or was it Richmond Annex?), which is one town over for us. Now that I know she is a dyer, I plan to bug Ellen about having her at the store for a trunk show. She uses only natural dyes and her colors are soft and she chooses her palette with a very sharp eye. I want more!

More yarn! More Yarn! I was also drawn into the very attractive booth of Sincere Sheep, whose labels proudly proclaim its yarn is “made by hand in the Napa Valley.” Man, who doesn’t have that dream! Sell your stuff, move to the country and dye yarn for a living. Owner and designer Brooke Sinnes is doing just that and I had a hard time picking a skein, her yarns were so pretty and inviting. I bought a skein of “Keen,” a fingering weight super wash (do I sense a pattern?) made from Blue Face Leicester. The color way, “Anja,” is made with indigo, as she uses only natural dyes. It has 465 yards and cost $29.

That’s it for yarn. I also snagged a copy of Churchmouse Yarns and Teas pattern for “Barb’s Koigu Ruffle” (I can’t remember where I bought it!) and another for a simple yet challenging lace cardigan called “Akoya” by Carol Feller. I bought some software, too, that I hope will help me make some charts for my own designs – if I ever do more. It came from Intertwined Pattern Studio. I have not uploaded it yet, so look for a review in the future. And on the way out the door I bought a pair of Laurel Hill wooden  needles, size 4, for lace.

It was a fantastic morning. We went off to lunch in San Mateo, made a stop at Nine Rubies yarn store and headed home. I was in front of the TV watching college football (GO TIGERS!) and knitting by 5. All in all a great day.

Because I Wanna – Mendocino Sea Salt

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The whole purpose of a blog is to write about things ya wanna write about. I feel like writing about Mendocino Sea Salt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

About a year ago, I was up at The Sea Ranch with a group of fellow knitters and on the Saturday morning of our weekend we drove into

Ava's flowers

 

My wreath and its maker

Gualala to go to the farmers’ market. VERY cool farmer’s market – I got a beautiful, handmade wreath woven with dried purple flowers and seas shells that hangs over my dresser and reminds me of the trip every day. I also took this picture of this little girl selling flowers with her grandmother. I hope she made a small fortune.

Another thing we encountered there was a tent where two people – husband and wife – were selling salts, salt rubs and salt mixes they made themselves under the name Mendocino Sea Salt. If I remember correctly, the woman, whose name was Lora, told me that she and her husband, Bob, owned a salmon boat, but that with all the restrictions on salmon fishing, they had converted the boat and their business to collecting sea salt off the coast of Gualala and making these products.

Well! How cool is that, I thought. I tasted a bunch of the salts and bought the basic, Mendocino Sea Salt. I really liked its mineral tang – not so much an aftertaste, just a kind of knock on your tongue at the same time you taste the salt. To me, it really tasted like the Mendocino and Sonoma coast smells! It came in a little jar with a little wooden scoop. Over the next 9 months I doled that stuff out in my cooking and to my guests like it was gold. Remember the old episode of Seinfeld where Elaine has to decide if a guy is “sponge worthy”? I had to decide if my food and my guests were “salt worthy.” (Most of them were!) The salt sat on our Thanksgiving table.

Mendocino Sea Salt at the farmer's market

Then, alas, I ran out about a month ago. But no worries – we were off to Sea Ranch again in June and I’d go back to the farmer’s market. Two weeks before the trip, I saw MSS for sale in Boonville when we were up their for a pinot noir festival. But I thought it would be more fun to buy it from Lora again, so I held off.

NEVER HOLD OFF. EAT DESSERT FIRST. When we went to Sea Ranch two weeks later the weather on Saturday morning was DREADFUL and the farmers market was cancelled. No flowers. No veggies. No new wreath. AND NO SEA SALT.

Enter my fabulous husband. When I came home empty handed, he got online and ordered me not one but TWO jars. They came in the mail yesterday, with a great set of recipes I can use with my sea salt. Here’s one I wanna try this weekend:

Mendocino Sea Salt Pasta – Serves 2

1/2 lb spaghetti or any other pasta

1/2 C good quality extra virgin olive oil

2 fresh tomatoes or 2 C grape tomatoes

3 garlic cloves

1T Mendocino Sea salt

Basil or any fresh herb you have on hand – be generous

Start cooking pasta as directed. Place oil in large serving bowl. Chop whole tomatoes or cut grape tomatoes in half. Crush garlic and sea salt with mortar and pestle. Add garlic and sea salt and tomatoes to oil. Tear or chop basil and add to mixture. Add cooked pasta, toss and serve.

 

 

TNNA Days 4 and 5 – Show Me The Money!

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I have been out of commission, at least in terms of blogging, for the last few days and I do apologize. I have been, as Bob Cratchitt would say, “making rather merry” with friends and family who are happy over a job opportunity that has come my way. More about that in a later post, when I have details and am at liberty to discuss. But let it suffice here to say that there has been champagne (small c) flowing and lots of backslapping going on. I haven’t been at the blog in the meantime.

SO! Back to the TNNA show. This is the fun post. This is the post where I get to tell you about the cool stuff Ellen and I got for the shop, and even cooler still, about some of the cool people behind that stuff. The fact that I came home inspired and super-excited about knitting has to do with these folks we met on the TNNA sales floor.

I can’t remember, at this remove, in what order we encountered these folks, so here they are, in no special order.

STITCH DIVA – Jennifer Hansenis the brains behind the radically cool and chic designs put out under this logo. She’s a local gal, started in

JH in Hairpin Lace Design

Fremont and now lives in the San Jose area. She works a lot in crochet, Tunisian crochet and hairpin lace and even does some knitting. I’ve had my eye on her since I first saw her at Stitches West maybe 6 years ago or more and I have always admired her sense of style and her great marketing. In my opinion, she is single-handedly revolutionizing the look of crochet – something it has desperately needed for 30 or more years – bringing it a very hip sensibility and updated profile. We saw her first at the Sample It night, where she was selling three books – her “Complete Works” of every pattern she has ever made (it’s more than an inch thick), her book of Tunisian crochet patterns, and her book of hairpin lace patterns. We plan to take a deep, long look at these and decide what to carry in the shop. They are all fabulous, especially this little red number pictured on the right, which is not yet available to us. We also hope to have her come up and teach a retreat or class. She is a hot number.

 

Jackie E-S with her designs

HEARTSTRINGS – I first encountered HeartStrings patterns when I was with Ellen on one of the K2Tog knitting cruises. We made a beeline from the ship to the Beehive Wool Shop in  Victoria, BC and just inside the door they had a table with a gorgeous tableau of samples knit up, including one of HeartString’s Lead or Follow Scarfdone in

HeartString's Angels & Fairies Scarf

a gorgeous Ella Rae lace. I bought it and started it on the ship. It remains one of the most challenging and satisfying pieces of lace I have ever knit. So I was thrilled to see HeartStrings designer Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer at TNNA and be able to fondle her luscious samples and buy some for K2Tog. She, too, had a booth at Sample It, which I bought (note to designers – almost everything we bought for K2Tog we bought after purchasing for ourselves at Sample It), and I took home 8 of her new designs and pored over them that night. I find her patterns to be original – they don’t look like anyone else’s – and very thorough and well done. I like her layout too – nothing is too crowded on the page. I brought her designs back to the shop and have already parceled them out among my co-workers so we’ll have some samples ready when the patterns arrive.

FICKLE KNITTER- Sometimes you meet someone who is just starting out in his or her chosen field and you get this feeling: this person could

Michelle Miller, the Fickle Knitter

be big. I felt that way when meeting Michelle Miller, the designer behind Fickle Knitter. Like Jennifer Hansen, we spotted her at the Sample It night where she was selling a

MM's Limestone 1 Skein Shawl

collection of her lace designs. But like most successful designers, Michelle has a niche – she specializes in designs that can be completed with one skein of luxury yarn. I think this is genius, and as a person who works in a yarn store, I love this idea because it helps me make the shopper realize she can giver herself permission to spend $50 or more for a single-skein project because it is gonna look fantastic. After nabbing a notebook full of Michelle’s patterns at Sample It, I went to her booth and found out more. First, she is a doll! A down-to-earth, happy-to-talk-to-you gal about the genesis of her designs and show you pics  and sketches of her process.  She lives in Orange County, Calif. and came to design after taking time off from her physics career (!!!!!) to have a baby, an adorable baby girl who models some of her pieces.  We had this great conversation about lace knitting, which may of you know is just my passion. Here’s the most telling thing she said: “I almost like making the numbers add up and work out more than I like the knitting.” That made me trust her designs immediately. So we bought a bunch.

ART YARNS- I’ve had my eye on Art Yarns for a long time. This company, owned by

Yummies at Art Yarns

Iris Schreier and her husband, makes luxury yarns, some of it more expensive than I would ever consider buying. But it is undeniable that they carry some fabulous chic and delicious yarns that I can’t keep my hands off. We decided to order, but to start small – we got Silk Rhapsody and Beaded Silk because they have the pattern support – much of it free – to help our customers make some spectacular one-skein wonders. Add to this the fact that Fickle Knitter designs with some of their yarns, and this seemed a natural.

Laura Nelkin- Designer Laura Nelkin did not have booth on the floor, but was there as a

Nelkin Necklace

teacher. At the meet-and-greet with the teachers, she had a display of some of her current and new patterns, including a really clever, simple and elegant garter stitch beaded necklace. She very kindly GAVE ONE to Ellen (we carry LN’s designs at the store) which she promptly knit up that night and I blocked the next night, and we are sooooo gonna carry these in the store and do a free class for those who buy these hot little kits. Nelkin, you go girl!

We bought some other cool stuff too – some great buttons, project bags and silk needle cases from Lantern Moon, including a project bag that benefits a clinic in Haiti, some special tools to pick up dropped stitches in garter stitch, some water bottles and notebooks from Knit Happy and a mess of new needles from Chaiogoo and Hiya Hiya. We bought a TON of notions, new and already instock, at Bryson.

I have a bunch of great memories from this trip, and some of them are captured in random pictures. This by far is my favorite: Ellen and I were walking past the Lion Brand Yarns booth and they had a couple of really bright animal hats out on their display table – racoon, pigs, fox, etc. I dared her. She didn’t hesitate:

Two little piggies

 

 

Cliff

And we also ran into Cliff, our “rep” for Kollage yarns and needles. He was standing by a poster featuring a model that looked an awful lot like him! He is a good sport.

I had the good fortune to take two marketing classes from Chris Bylsma, one of my favorite designers (Saturday Morning Jacket and Door County Cable Sweater) and they were just great!

She was joined in the classes by Kathy Morrow, owner of The Yarn Studio in Minturn, CO. They were an absolute hoot, and also really great teachers. I learned a lot from them that I’ll be trying out in the store (LOOK OUT!) Here’s a picture of Chris just because I love her . . .

Chris, in Door County Cable

I have a bit more to share, which I may or may not get to. Aren’t you all TIRED of TNNA yet???