Twisted in Portland

Just got back from a trip to Portland, Oregon where I was visiting a friend.  What a fun place to visit!  Lots of interesting little neighborhoods with many, many small restaurants (does anyone eat at home in Portland?) and some nice touristy things to do with visiting out of towners such as this:

                                                                   
A visit to the Portland Rose Test Garden in Washington Park, which is spectacular.  Oregon's climate is conducive to growing all kinds of things and roses, in particular, thrive there.
Now we know why Portland is called The Rose City.

                                                                       
A visit to the Lan Su Chinese Garden in the middle of  downtown Portland which is the most authentic Chinese garden outside of China.  What a lovely peaceful place.

This city is home to some serious artsy craftsy DIY folks and it seems everywhere you go there are people making things - furniture, clothing,  jewelry, small cottages from recycled goods, artwork and, of course, needlework.  Trust me, you all would love it.

Of course we stopped to check out the local knitting shops and my friend took me to her local hangout, Twisted.  What a great shop!  This is definitely a must see for any knitter visiting Portland:

                 

                                                                                                                             

                                                                         
That sock display is from Chrissy Gardiner's Indie Sock book.  This is a pretty large shop with a very good inventory of yarn including some interesting hand dyed yarns and lots of samples to give you inspiration.

Saw this Rockefeller shawl in a window and had to include this, although it's not the best photo.  Love these colors!  This pattern is Stephen West's mystery KAL project that everyone has been doing.

                                                                   

I have been working on a sweater for my grandson, but I don't have any pictures to show.  Here is my progress on the Modular Afghan:

                                                                     
Have a good weekend everybody and go check out Andrea's blog to see what other fiber folks have been up to.
                                                                                   

Happy Fiber Arts Friday

It's Fiber Arts Friday and the start of Labor Day Weekend - hooray!  Going over to Santa Cruz to hang out at the beach, check out the new Monterey Bay Marine sanctuary there, and perhaps do a little wine tasting and knitting.  The more wine tasting, the less knitting so we shall see how that goes.  In the meantime, here is what I have been up to:

                                   

                                                               

Knit these socks for my daughter with Austermann Step.  She loves the colors and so do I.  Looks like something you might see in a Harry Potter movie!

A while back, for those who follow my blog intently, you may remember I fell in love with the Modular Afghan displayed in last winter's Webs catalogue.  It was made with Noro's Taiyo and I dropped everything and ran to my computer and promptly ordered the color shown, plus an additional order of the same yarn in a pink colorway for an afghan for my daughter:

                                                                           

Of course my intention was to start knitting these immediately, but, well you know....

Anyway, I have now started the one for my daughter and it has turned out to be as much fun as I thought it would be.  It's been fun watching the colors develop and since each piece is joined as you go along, there will be no sewing together at the end.

                                                                                             

For anyone who might want to try this, the pattern is in Knit Noro and there are several projects on Ravelry if you want to see what others have done.

Have a great weekend and check out what others are up to on Andrea's blog.
                         

Summer Knitting

Not much knitting going on around here in the last month, and I have been looking for some inspiration to get excited about knitting again.  My cousin Kathy just underwent major surgery and that was reason enough to get off my duff and start knitting a pair of comfy socks for her.   This pattern is called Lace-Rib Pattern Socks by Karen Kahane and I've got the first one finished:

                                                                             

The yarn is Pediwick by Knit One crochet too and is 66% bamboo and 34% nylon:

                                                                                     


I'm sure there is a lot of great summer knitting going on with the Ravellenics during the Summer Olympics and here are a few lovely projects that caught my eye as I browsed through Ravelry.


This is Summer Flies by Donna Griffin:

       

Here's a version done by  Marni from Alano Yarnies:

                                                                                   

                                       

 

Just saw this cute shawl on Ravelry.  It's called Summer Blooms by Amanda Leggat:

                                                                                   
 
Am I the only one not knitting the Color Affection shawl?  Last I looked there were over 17,000 people knitting this on Ravelry.

                                                                                 
 
It's getting great reviews from easy to knit garter stitch pattern to a shape that drapes beautifully around the neck and stays in place.   I got to make one.   I think this is the inspiration I've been looking for!