Red Scarf project

I'm mailing my donations to the Red Scarf Project. Besides scarves, monetary donations can be made through paypal. There is a link on the site.

I enjoyed making all these scarves! Instant gratification:)

Today a ended with a wonderful cloud show right before sunset.

I'm plodding along on February Lady. I got one sleeve done and put the other one on the needles. There may be an end in sight. After all, I started this way back in July!

Hello Kitty has her day!

My oldest sister is a Hello Kitty junkie so I have a hard time passing by anything Hello Kitty or Sanrio. I was going for a large project bag with the Halloween Hello Kitty fabric. It came out very large. I adore the fabric.

The little zipper bags are a bit of a pain to make as they zipper is sewn in by hand. I found some great little charms at the not so-99 cents store and the recent trade show.



brella has some free Totoro patterns on Ravelry and this is her little chibi Totoro. I love his bobble tail. Normally I avoid bobbles as they just seem redundant, but this is a giant bobble and is really quite cute. He is Beaverslide natural, knit with size 4 needles.

February Lady has not budged for awhile. Montego seasilk scarf has been frogged and is trying to become Ysolda's Damson, but definitely not on size 5 needles.



The final day of Shibori was really fun. I got to talk to blogless Doris who has taken the class many times and had some great samples. She disappeared before I whipped my camera out, but I hope to see her again. This time I got the long kim chee making gloves from Palama Market and my fingers were in pretty good shape, but my feet are still blue.

A Different Kind of Blues

I took a Shibori Class on the spur of the moment. I stopped by Kuni's Island Fabric for some interfacing and saw the class sample. It must have been fate as there was room in the class! The class is taught by a fiber artist and teacher, Darius Homay. I arrived Sunday with my prewashed fabric and came away with 6 different techniques! Also, blue fingers.

I lucked out as all the other ladies were repeaters, so I had private lessons! Mr. Homay was very personable, knowlegeable and I had a grand time! I have another class next Sunday. Maybe by that time all the blue will be gone from my fingers and they can get blue again.

Finished near Friday

Pattern: Children's Neck Down Bolero by Dianne Soucy
Yarn: Cascade Cotton Rich, 5 skeins
Needles: size 8 and 7

I knit the size 2. I'm still not sure about the button placement. The yardage of the yarn is small and there were knots, so there were quite a few ends to weave in. I was afraid the yarn would be too bulky to weave in well, but this turned out know to be a problem. The pattern is very quick to knit and well-written. It would be lovely in Jo Sharp's Silkroad Aran Tweed, but I wanted something a bit more rugged and easy to wash.




Pattern: I used a combination of Wendy's Toe Up Sock and Mim's Toe Up Heel Flap.
Yarn: Kool Aid dyed at the Anacortes Arts Festival this year by mwah:)at Ana-Cross Stitch needle works shop.
Needles: size 1

This was a very fun project for me. I am very cheered by the bright colors and the sweet kool aid smell.

Odds and Ends

On the knitting scene, I am flitting from project to project. I guess I'm not the serial knitter I thought I was. I also have regret about my stash of sock yarn that is loved but has gone untouched. I envision starting a new project, perhaps toe-up with the kool aid dyed yarn and have wound it in to a ball. Of my other wips, February Lady seems to be taking forever to grow. At least I have measured my length and have the target set, and then the sleeves. Top Down Bolero seems to be the favored one, and after the collar, I'll be ready for the sleeves. Montego Seasilk scarf is hibernating and I even thought of frogging it for another project.

So on to more travelogue.

At the Anacortes Craft Festival, while I was dyeing my yarn, several of my party were getting their Fair T-shirts signed by the artist, Jack Gunther. We took up his invitation to visit his gallery. I think it's fair to say, he was an odd and interesting character. At first I thought he might be schizophrenic. His explanation of how civilization began around Mt. Vernon, complete with artifacts, such as a computer on pottery gave us all cause to smile. I especially liked his paintings with removable magnetic parts, like this one revealing the secret submarine base under Camano Island
He also has a book, A Pictorial History of the Pacific Northwest Including the Future, told from the viewpoint of a pig. We shared our lunch with him and blogless Kathy O. got some awesome homemade salsa from the small store next door. It was a fun outing of a different kind, and I can say we were all surprised but happy!

When I look at all the picture I took, one of the biggest folders is of the Seattle Gasworks Park. This is a 19 acre park across Lake Union from downtown Seattle and features great views of Seattle including the space needle and a rusting hulk, which was once a working Gaswork. It was built in 1906 to manufacture gas from coal - later converted to crude oil. Import of natural gas in the 1950's made the plant obsolete.
Somehow this hulking mass appeals to me...



It reminds me of Myst and Howl's Moving Castle.

Changing the subject abruptly...here is a picture of Lenin in Fremont. A Washingtonian rescued it from a scrapyard in Poprad, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia) and had it shipped home and erected in Fremont (as a work of art, not a political statement). Accorded to Wikipedia it's for sale.


And last but not least a mosaic of the log cabin blogless Melody and her husband are building with the help of their son. Her husband took a two day course. He cleared the land and many of the logs went into making the house. We were there for chinking. In the mosaic are the shower, the bathroom, the kitchen and the well house where they are living until the main house gets closed up, as well as Melody's garden, Some of the objects of art from the garden came from a garage sale. She were following Melody on one of our daily adventures, and before we knew it we had followed her into a garage sale! It was one of those impromptu Melody moments that will stick in my mind as a very happy event.

The pond on the property has a beaver dam. Every once in a while her husband has to cut into it to drain the duckweed out of it and he says at 10 pm sharp, the beavers come out and fix the breach. Otherwise, they never see them.

Kiko

New Cat
Originally uploaded by acornbud

Kiko is my parents new kitten. She is very tiny. They got her from the human society yesterday and already she has explored the whole house, tested out the kitty litter and charmed everyone. I just wish I wasn't allergic.

Food Highlights

(Warning: Long post, no knitting. Run-on sentences and poor grammar abound)

I really enjoyed staying in downtown Seattle for a few days. I was able to walk to Pike's Market several times and lust after the sweet smells coming from Pirosky's. On the last day I watched a tiny women roll out a counter-top full of dough, use a paint scraper to spread out a paste of cinnamon on it and twist the strips into twists. I finally succumbed to the green apple roll on my final day and brought it home to Hawaii. Of course the fresh fruits and vegetables were there to pick and choose. The peaches were just coming on and were sweet and juicy. These odd flat peaches seem all the rage now, and I know they are tasty, but hey, call me sentimental, but I like 'em round...less fuzz and seed and more peach!

My friends rotated staying at the hotel with me so one could watch the aging but still personable Ms. Ebony. As Margaret is a late riser, I usually walked across the street to Ralph's for coffee and yogurt and knit on Gaia while watching the interesting characters walking up and down the street. Seattle dress is very casual. Many people rushing to work had back packs, jeans and hoodies, with only an occasional suit. There were also the street people...some reminding me of the drug dealers from the Wire, and some just plain down and out and a bit crazy and scary.

Tom Douglas has 5 Restaurants in downtown Seattle all walking distance from my hotel. I ate 3 times at Lola's, once a the Palace Kitchen and once at the Dahlia Lounge. I didn't do Etta's or the Serious Pie this time around. I was hoping for mushrooms as the last time I ate at the Palace, the morel mushrooms abounded. Alas only chanterelles were in season, but not on the menu. I really enjoyed the beet Skordalia at Lola's and the scallops and corn hash at the Dahlia Lounge. My friend Margaret got hummus fries with her lamb burger. She also raved about the bran muffin from Lola's. I wan't that corn hash recipe. It looked pretty simple to make and was sooo good.

Near Fremont, I got hooked on the most wonderful coffee at Cafe Ladro. Medici...a mocha with orange zest. So yummy! Can't find it here, so I'm experimenting with my own. Would help if I had some chocolate syrup.Their pastries are little works of art and taste good to boot.

Tilth was a cute little restaurant with wonderful place settings. The cutest potato chips came with my burger and I conjured little people with a little mandolin slicing away. I can't remember the name of the
Italian Restaurant but it was a very tasty and generous pasta dish. (update, the restaurant was named Rialto. Margaret loved her lamb shank meal!) I ate twice at Anita's. She has crepe dishes that were very yummy and great salads. Like many of the restaurants I went to, she also had very nice wine.

I had lovely fried oysters at Cutter's in Pike's Market and also at Anthony's in Point Defiance. I always go to Chinook's at least once while I'm in Seattle. I had the crab Loui and it was perfect! The boat from Deadliest Catch was in the Salmon Bay, looking out from our table, along with these Canadian geese.










The best of all was all the fresh fruit and vegies. The black berries in the yard were so sweet and I loved picking a basket and eating them with just a bit of whipped cream (I now call this Chantilly a new word I learned at Anita's). The Sakuma Farm blue berries and strawberries I picked were so plump and fresh, the huckleberries so pretty and tart...they made lovely crisp and so yummy with ice cream. I also ate tay berries and boysenberries for the first time, and of course couldn't resist a piece of that marionberry pie. Margaret's back yard in Seattle was full of plums just getting ripe. I picked bunch and tried making sugar free jam for the first time. Only two of the four bottles sealed, but the jam was a success.




My host on Camano Island introduced me to a Danish treat...Æbleskiver.
Her pan is handed down in her family and made of cast iron. The one at Williams Sonoma is teflon....hmmm. Wonder if it will work on my glass cook top?





Another new and dangerous (to the waistline and arteries) is D'Affinois. This is a creamy, delicious brie-like cheese The Bay Leaf in Coupeville always stocks. I better pray I can't find it here in Honolulu;)









At the Sakuma Farm, I was treated to a great feast! The fruit dip was one of the highlights and one of the guests was caught spreading it on her bread...hah! It turned out to be a very sinful mix of marshmallow creme (yes that Kraft stuff made of who knows what), cream cheese and orange zest. I cannot tell a lie...it was yummers!




OMG, and how could I forget the wonderful smoked salmon from Pure Food Fish Market in Pike's Market?