Twisp of Fate

Blogging is lagging behind the actual living of life, this week.  It’s been a busy one.  I will try to catch up over the weekend!

A week ago we went down to Vancouver, WA towing the new cargo trailer with cabinets for our friends’ living room remodel.  Rick spent much of the weekend installing cabinets and trimming out windows and doors:

Here’s a shot from before the remodel – quite a difference, eh?

Meanwhile, I went off to Portland, OR on both Saturday and Sunday to visit the Sock Summit at the Oregon Convention Center.  A lot of my Seattle friends were there, and one from Omak too!  This thing was huge and featured many famous names in the worlds of knitting, spinning and dyeing including some who rarely, if ever, come to conferences of this size (Barbara Walker, Meg Swansen, Priscilla Gibson-Roberts, Anna Zilboorg).  I had not pre-registered and did not take any classes, but just wandered happily around the marketplace with 150 vendors, many of whom were small dye houses with beautiful and unusual yarns and spinning fibers.  I also attended the Luminary Panel at the end of the day on Sunday, which was a not-to-be-missed opportunity to hear commentary and reminiscences from nine fabulous women who have certainly been inspirations to me over the past 25 years.

Brier Rose

Sock Summit Market - tip of the iceberg

The Sanguine Gryphon

Too big to take pictures of really!

On the way home on Monday, being blessed with an empty cargo trailer, we stopped in Port Orchard where I bought a new (old, actually) loom which I found on Craig’s List last week.  More on this in a later post!

Read Full Post »

We had a 4-day, 3-night visit to The Coast last weekend, a busy and sociable visit.  On the way over on Friday, we had dinner with old friends from Seattle who have built a new home at Suncadia, a planned development and resort near Roslyn on the east side of Snoqualmie Pass.  Their home is beautiful, particularly the tile work in the kitchen and bathrooms which they did themselves – it’s very individualistic and professional looking.

On Saturday we shopped for the dinner I was cooking that evening, which was a joint birthday celebration for Rick and his sister (they are 4 years and 4 days apart in age).  Here they are after having done justice to the roast lamb and accompaniments, including a lot of veggies from our own garden this year:

Sunday was for knitting (for me anyway) with a group of friends who meet once a month.  I haven’t made it for the last 2 months, so it was great to see everyone.  Sarah had finished a beautiful Aran cardigan which she designed herself:

Later that day I delivered 2 of my rag rugs to someone who had ordered them for her kitchen and then we dashed to the ferry to Bainbridge Island to have dinner with our friends who have just come up for summer break from southern California.  They keep a sailboat at the Eagle Harbor marina and live aboard when they are up in the Northwest.

Monday was for errands and business meetings, then lunch at Seattle’s Uwajimaya and a bit of book shopping at Kinokuniya Bookstore (Japan’s largest bookstore chain specializing in Asian language books).   I found a book I was looking for with interesting, rather free-form clothing that could be adaptable to handwoven fabrics – of course it is all in Japanese, but the schematics are good and it includes the patterns in an insert.

Then we were off homeward in the afternoon, arriving about 7 pm, back in the valley again.  Always glad to be home!

Read Full Post »