A Quilt Exhibit at the Ainsley House

The Ainsley House in Campbell, Ca. is a beautiful old house modeled after an English country home that once occupied a spot near the EBAY office park on Bascom Avenue.   It has since been moved to a nice little spot in the downtown historic area and somehow they managed to move this house in one piece with minor damage:

                                                                                    

I've driven by here a number of times and always wanted to stop by.  Their current quilt exhibit, Piece by Piece,  was as good a reason as any to go visit.  The house was built for the Ainsley family in 1925 and is decorated with furnishings original to the house when they lived there starting in the 1920's.  Here is one of the quilt table runners in the entry hall:

                                                                          

The quilts are mostly contemporary and are displayed in each room of the house.  Here's the dining room:

                                                                                            

   A Hawaiian design displayed in the dining room:

                                                                        

    
A display of china fruit cups.  Mr. Ainsley was in the fruit packing industry:

The kitchen is in the original condition:

  

  
I am always amazed at the detailed work that goes into making these quilts.  I once took a Log Cabin quilt class and it took many months and many glasses of wine to finally finish it and  what I really got out of that class was that quilting was not "my thing" and that a well made quilt is worth every penny it is being sold for.  And more.

                                                                                

The quilt exhibit will be there until June 26th.   Ainsley House is surrounded by lovely English style gardens and is also available for weddings and other functions.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

It's Summer!

Well, pretty close to it, and the weather has finally turned warm and sunny - all right!  Finished my Lace Shawl Collared Vest but with temperatures in the 80's I'm going to pass on modeling it.  Here's a picture from my Ravelry projects page:

And here is a picture of my vest in progress:

                                                                            

Got to get better at finishing these projects so I get to wear them for the appropriate season, although I could have been wearing this up to a week ago with leggings and some boots.   Speaking of having something ready for the appropriate season, I've decided to use my summer knitting time working on  projects for my grandkids so that they are ready for the Fall.  I'm working on a project for my grandson that will be ready for him for this Fall.  The pattern is called Maize from Nashua Handknits:

                                                                          

                                                                                

Here is what I'm working on.  I'm using the yarn called for, Creative Focus Superwash:

                                                                                    


Next will be a sweater for Baby Forest:

This is from Zoe Mellor's book, Double Knits  and is done in Rowan DK cotton although I'm not sure what yarn I'm going to use yet.   Well, these two projects will probably keep me busy through my summer travels.  Here is a cute poem I saw on the Writer's Almanac site about vacation travelling.  It's called Summer Trips by Jonathan Greene.

                                               

Scenes from Graduation Weekend UC Santa Barbara

Spent a wonderful weekend in Santa Barbara attending our daughter Jamie's graduation.  Our other kids, Sara and Ryan,  flew in for the weekend and so it was also a nice chance to get together as a family and visit:

                                                                          

Stopped by the apartment she shared with 7 other girls in the infamous Isla Vista, an area just outside of the UC that I refer to as the Island of the Lost Children - I don't think there is anyone who lives there who is over 22 years of age:

                                                                                      
      
A few scenes from her apartment:

                                                                                  

          

  

    

  


Saturday morning was the graduation ceremony for the College of Letters and Science:

                                                                                

  

                                                                   Here's our girl!!

  

                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                                    

        The Proud Family:

                                                                                        

                                                                                            
  
Jamie and her friends.  A pretty smart group; one Phi Beta Kappa and a couple of others graduated with honors, including Jamie:

  

                                                                                  

                                                                                  

  Down at the Pier in Santa Barbara:

A great weekend!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Yarn Bombing

                                                                            
So it turns out next Saturday is International Yarn Bombing Day; was my friend Vivian on to this when she bombed her house?

There are alot of people out there doing fun and creative yarnbombing and, of course, there is a Ravelry group for this as well.   Here are some pictures I came across:

    

    

Streetcolor decorated this pole outside of The Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco:

                                                                                  

A subway seat in Philadelphia:

                                                                            


The Raging Bull on Wall Street was covered in crochet by an artist named Olek.  This picture is from an article in the New York Times about yarn bombing:

                                                                                

There's also a book  on yarnbombing by Mandy Moore and Leanne Prain  for anyone interested:

                                                                        

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Shop Hopping

The Sacramento/Sierra yarn shop hop starts on June 1st and goes 'til the 5th.   There are nine stores taking part, and I may be one of the few who is brave enough to take on Donner Pass  to get to The Lake Tahoe Yarn Company to get my passport stamped.  Heck, we had 12 inches of snow on Saturday up here!  Not great weather for being outdoors, but a good excuse to check out some yarn shops:

                                                                            

At LTYC, I ordered a book called Selbuvotter  by Terri Shea.  Terri did a research project on the famous mitten patterns of Norway and then self published a book about her work:

Here are some projects from the book.  This one was done by knitsalot on Ravelry:

This was done by Annem on Ravelry:

  

This  is Annemor #9 and was knit by amuotoko:

  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Then it was on to Meadow Farm Yarn Studio in Nevada City:

      
Nevada City is a charming little gold rush town located about 40 minutes north of highway 80 in Auburn and a trip to this shop is well worth the drive, which looks like it would be a very pretty road trip in the Fall or any other time when it isn't raining!

                                                                              
                                                                          

 Meadow Farm is a nice shop with a large inventory of yarn, lots of project samples on display and a few comfy couches and chairs to sit and knit:


                                                                          

    

      

           They carry yarns that you don't see in many California shops such as Classic Elite and
Kauni:

  

Here's their version of the Flower Market bag that was in an older Interweave Knits issue:

    

A Sally Melville men's sweater:

  
A shawl hanging in the window:

    

    I think this will be the extent of my yarn shop hopping, but I'm glad I made it to Meadow
Farm; I will definitely be back.

Did some house cleaning in my craft room and brought a bag of yarn to my friend Vivian who is yarn bombing her house.   Yarn bombing is graffitti, but in a much nicer form, where knitters choose to decorate an area with knitted pieces, such as these two done by streetcolor:

                                                                                                                                                                      

   Here are a few pictures of Vivian's house:

The knitted pieces on the left were hand dyed with Kool Aid:

                                                                                  

Vivian with her cute little dog:

    

Bye Vivian!