Stumptown Daze

Last weekend Seth and I went up to Portland (fondly known as Stumptown --an old revitalized nickname) for the Portland Old-Time Gathering. Three days of a rollicking good old time at the Norse Hall (I'm glad they have a link as I neglected to take any photos of it--very old-school cool) in North-East Portland--just north of Burnside on 11th. Seth and the other members of Molasses got down with some other folks in the ladies powder room! There were jams everywhere! I went to a clogging workshop, and the blowout square dance on Saturday had well over 200 people spinning in circles (and squares!).


It was extra pleasant because we got to stay in our friends' cool old-school apartment building up in North-West.* I have a lower tolerance for jamming than Seth so I visited Washington Park with Chris and Heather. It is the largest urban park in the United States, and it's only a few blocks from their place. Of course, since it's the largest park, it's close to many people!

We saw Mt. Hood on lovely display, but there was a big ugly building in the way, and though it was quite majestic in real life, it looks pretty weenie in the photo (it's coming out of Chris's left ear).


While Chris sketched the lampost, Heather and I crossed a cool bridge from 1925 into a hidden neighborhood saw this old gate leading up to a big house on a hill:

The big synagogue in their neighborhood was also built in the 1920's and looks very classy (wood shakes on the roof and everything--very rare in modern urban settings, or anywhere much anymore).


Portland is still a young city compared to Boston, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, etc. but it has a sense of history, and they haven't willy-nilly torn most of it down like they have in Eugene (sniffle).


*Portland Geography Primer: Portland is split North-South by the Willamette River which gives it and East side and a West Side. The roads that run north-south number out from the river congruently. I.E. there is a 1st Ave East and a 1st Ave West;a 2nd Ave East and a 2nd Ave. West, etc (well, more or less unless they've been re-named or dead end, but you get the idea). It is split North and South by a big road that runs East-West called Burnside. If I'm wrong about Burnside being the splitter street, please let me know. There are various semi-predictable, semi-alphabetic street names for the East-West roads, but they don't hold up under much scrutiny. Anyhow, so that makes Portland divided roughly into 4 quadrants which are known by their directional names. Clear as mud? No, Mudtown is the old name for Eugene...so, clear as a clearcut in Stumptown?

P.S. I swear I tried to indent my paragraphs, but this blog program just erases my spaces!

Below The Falls Lodge

My sister, Jennifer, asked about the tree in the stairs at the cool New Year's Eve house. It is a big juniper trunk and is one of the central visual features of the living room. This house has so many cool visual features-- both central and supporting--that you're constantly noticing more!

The hobbit door main entrance is really cute:

The sliding glass doors to the deck overlook Glenn Creek rushing by, and create a relaxing spot for freshly finished stripey bears (Seth is just too cool, isn't he?) to chill out:

The kitchen is gourmet and the open floor plan great for hanging out:

We're not sure we should have let the neighbor cat in, but she was so sweet and the weather was so wet... (we named her Myrtle for all the myrtle wood in the house and trees growing outside):

The swinging beds were very lulling (if that's a word), though they could be a bit much for the extremely motion sensitive:
The tree as support theme is echoed by the counter supports:


The whole place was built by the owner mostly of wood which was felled and milled from the house site. He brought the junipers over from eastern Oregon. If you want to know more, check out the web-site. It's O.K. to share this with you now because I've booked my next weekend already! The only drawback was the dirt road was really muddy due to the fact we were there during a huge storm system. Oh, yeah, and some roof tiles blew off onto our friends' car.....

Procrastinator's Curse

I wish I hadn't gone so long between blog posts, because now I don't have time to tell you about:



getting the sleeves onto my bottom up now-one-piece Bacardi cardi;



making felted beads with my class at school and then with friends at a friend's house;



playing with my in-laws' new puppy Willow (she likes to email);








getting a new futon that came in a box;



traveling to Pittsburgh , PA, from a snowstorm in Portland which lead to us staying overnight at an Embassy Suites with a waterfall/koi pond in Fort Worth (yes, Texas);






shopping in the Strip District (not what you think--it's a strip of warehouses/fun food stores);






spending winter break at my folks' house celebrating solstice, my mom's birthday, Christmas, Channukah, and the folks' 50th wedding anniversary all at once (including sleeping in the attic playroom);










the hats I crocheted for the boys, or the beaded bracelets I knitted for the girls;




the "fun and easy" rat, Liar, my niece created for Seth (Uncle Rat) or the cool Rat-Sack bag from my Uncle Ed's newest business project;








or going to a really cool house on Glenn Creek, just below Golden and Silver Falls state Park, in Coos Bay, Oregon, where we spent New Year's Eve;




To tell you all that would take a whole blog entry for each event, but if you want to know more about any of them, let me know and I'll write some more!

Fabulous Fall

            It has been a fabulous fall in Eugene, for me at least.  Despite being a bit sick with your basic crud, we had a lovely Halloween party where both my costume and my mother-in-law's costume involved fiber related themes:
          Our very good friend came to visit and we all went on a walk along Fall Creek. The Big Leaf Maples (which are very appropriately named) had just dumped all their leaves like ginormous snowflakes in the previous night's rainstorm, but they hadn't gotten all soggy and slippery yet.  

The Maidenhair ferns loved the increase in fall moisture and were showing off their frills to great effect.

There isn't really all that much fall color in Oregon compared to many parts of the U.S. because we have many more conifers than deciduous trees, but those we have are putting on a nice show this year.

We don't go hiking nearly as much as we should. It's so easy to become complacent about the natural beauty of the world, but we really should take note:

 

Over the course of the next few days I worked on finished the applied i-cord border to the heirloom pullover (hand-spun knitted by Reida for Seth in his high-school days, but really too hot for him to ever have worn much) which I had STEEKED (cut open with scissors!) a few days earlier at my friend's house (after having watched her do a few of her prized hand-spun sweaters herself). Then I just sewed on some buttons (vintage plastic from one of Reida's mother's old coats), and...

Viola!-- I was ready to vote 

in our historic election in style!

Stormwater Rises (#14)

I did it! I finished my first lace project: The Stormwater Scarf made of Handmaiden Seasilk. The yarn shop in Seattle where I actually bought the yarn did not have the pattern, but the kind people at Handmaiden emailed it to me when I told them of my predicament as they only sell it as a kit, but I already had the yarn.

The blocking was completely magical. Even with the half sized skein you can see it came out quite large after blocking. I  simply had to cast off before I lost my mind with fear of a huge mistake. I could have done at least 3 more repeats with the amount left .  I had seen blocking work on other people's blogs, but still, I was quite surprised that it took my lovely, but rumply piece and turned it into an amazingly open, flat item in which one can see all the stitches! 

Don't look too closely though, there are some definite pattern mistakes.

Still, I lovelovelove it! Don't worry; I'm still going to give it to my friend. I'm not THat selfish.

One down, still 16 to go

Well, I don't know where it is, so I can't take it's picture, but I recalled last night that I have an unfinished hooked yarn teddy bear floating around somewhere so that's one more U.F.O, so even though I finished the Stormwater Scarf, I'm STILL at 16. Crikey!

Remember I said Real fiber addicts have way more? A woman in my knitting group hurt her hand and isn't allowed to knit for several weeks, so she's spending her time ripping out old projects she has decided she'd never finish. She called it "a massive yarn reclamation project." Several weeks worth of ripping out?! I sit in awe of her knitting fanaticism.  P.S. Get well soon, you know who you are!

+1-1=16

So, I started and finished a new project all in one day! I went to a great workshop about making felted flowers at a great little local craft/book/high quality natural toys and art called Creative Hands Mercantile. I made this gorgeous flower garland in 3 hours!



In fact I think I might go embellish it a bit with a few beads.....