the things they made

just over the hill and around the lake, in a sunny little valley near my home, was a small fiber festival. i went sunday morning and met talented spinners, dyers, felters and a brilliant sculptor. the yarn over truck was even there!
i was a good girl (on a budget) saving up for my summer trip or i would have brought home that sculpted fox oh! and the kiwi! everything sara created was exquisite. her fanciful imagination realized in the most incredible (cannot use enough superlatives) whimsical pieces. and then i saw the felted owls. oh goodness. these are the creation of borbala. bori teaches natural dying and felting, i signed up for her felted owl necklace class. :) sad to not bring one of these treasures home, but i didn't go away completely empty handed, i found these pretty speckly hanks of wool and silk. i think they kind of match the wild lupine i saw growing in meadows surrounding the festival.
you can find sara's sculpture's at her etsy shop ~ spun on cotton and borbala's felted goods at bori dolls
the wool is from shari (sorry to have forgotten your photo shari!) at morro fleece works in morro bay. lovely work ladies!


and along with lots of knitting lately...

i've been practicing sashiko. i recently found preprinted sashiko designs, you only have to begin stitching. the leaf pattern i am working on is supposed to be a pillow top. i think maybe it wants to be a project bag instead. :)  did you see the felt scissor case? that is the work of my sweet friend karen (she made the pin cushion too, a white owl, love) if you need a good pair of embroidery scissors (gingher) with a very lovely handmade case, karen has them in her etsy shop crows nest studios. 

and honestly, i don't understand how it happened. there is an extraordinary (embarrassing) amount of projects on the needles. a sample knit was just finished, it needs a teeny bit of seaming and off it goes (yay! whew) then there is the in progress dress, and shawl and another shawl. i happily joined in a new kal with lovely leigh, and even though she said it would be just fine to keep knitting whatever you are already working on, i was compelled to cast on the same project she was making, the beautiful shallows cowl. the start of which is shown dangling above. it is such a pretty thing. have a wonderful week ahead. xxx lori

white lace black hap

 meadow lace

shetland triangle lace

it seems as if it's been one extreme to the other here, we've had dense fog (when i had time for photos, haha, oh well) and then cloudless sunshiny days. when i look at my recent knitting it looks about the same. from black to white, or, the other way around. i made two smallish shawls, out of two hanks of jade sapphire cashmere, in a very pretty natural cream colour, ivory. the shetland triangle lace shawl in the fir cone pattern i shared before, and now here is it's sister shawl, meadow lace, both patterns by evelyn clark. the fir cone lace took approximately five hundred yards, and meadow about three. the jade sapphire had 400 yards per skein, so it worked perfect! the meadow lace is such an interesting knit, it's made to have extra long ties, for staying on. in order for that to work, it is made using six or seven different charts (i just counted, it's six charts, seven pages) and binding off in places, knitting on in others. it is a simple knit, but when it came with several pages of directions for such a tiny shawl, i said eeps! the picot edge is my favorite part. and the garter stitch. and the tiny little flowers. oh it's all my favorite, i love it! raverly notes:

shetland lace triangle

meadow lace scarf

the very opposite from white, my all black hap shawl is growing. stitch by every single stitch, this is so far, on a scale of one to ten, ten being most enjoyable, a ten plus! i was fearful of the black. having knit with it before and saying, never again! two things have contributed to making this a positive experience. first this wool is extraordinary. oh my goodness. if you would like to try the softest, springiest, woolliest organic shetland wool, visit lorraine at cottage craft angora. you will find along with the shetland, luxury fibers such as angora, cashmere, qiviut (musk ox) and blends of all these. and the second reason to not fear black anymore... 

knit with a headlamp! yay! i've knit for years using one, camping, night driving, chuck, not me ;) when traveling and light is poor (or non existent like in africa when the generator lights are turned off after a designated hour). but at home, knitting with black, why didn't i think of it before? it's fantastic. haha, chuck cannot resist making comments. i guess it is pretty funny. but i can see. yes.

outside, everything is in bloom! our wedding roses (a very favorite post), and hollyhocks, seeds i planted last year, remind of my grandma rose. i rescued a flat of plants at the nursery, they were so sad looking, marked down to a dollar apiece. hopefully they'll like it here. i bought a strawberry plant and it's already producing berries. which the raccoons already ate off. these all need to be in the ground soon. and the sweetest pink roses from my love, i said eeps again. :)

thank you for always leaving such kind comments, they are so appreciated. 
happy almost weekend! xxx lori

the love boat

dear friends,

apologies for the sudden surge in posts (inspiration strikes!)  these are the forgotten photos of a cruise to alaska i took summer of twenty twelve, and remembered by a series of recent events: my friend is taking her first cruise (to greece) soon and wondered how it would be and chuck and i had a photo request that prompted a search through our images, so here a bit of what it is like to go on an (alaskan) cruise! 

welcome aboard the coral princess! today is called embark day. we are on the baja deck, on the starboard side. i finally learned a simple way to remember port and starboard, the left and the right side of a boat. port has four letters in it, port : four (letters) easy!

it is necessary to say cheers alot!

we are sailing from whittier into prince william sound and over night into the open waters of the gulf of alaska

during the early hours of the morning we made our way through yakutat bay. every day a paper would be delivered to our room, informing us of our whereabouts, what we would see

  now we are in glacier bay

this is the spectacular margerie glacier

on the top deck, it was a bit surreal to be surrounded by remote and stunningly magnificent landscapes and at the same time such luxury

heading towards skagway and ketchikan...

we discovered that at every moment, really every single one, there is something to see, incredible beauty outside, completely surrounding us

inside, which we took full advantage of as well, had it's benefits

one night after coming back to our stateroom alone, i found treats my sister had left  :)  it is true,
anything you could possibly desire, is available

on mornings the ship would dock and we would dash off! to explore, sometimes joining with an excursion

we visited saxman

and saw how totems are made

a carving in progress

creek street, ketchikan

always making sure we knew the time to be back on the ship, sometimes we cut it too close and had to run the entire way through town, seeing the crew throw the giant towlines free and hollering 'all aboard'!!

we are sailing back into our time zone, we are heading towards vancouver now, we'll be at sea for a day and a half

there is so much to do! we did a 5k for breast cancer research. here is my sister, a survivor, cutting the pink ribbon at the start of the walk/run

eight laps around the promenade deck is a 5k

it is good i ran with my camera, we saw an orca!

we are in the middle, u.s. is on one side and canada on the other

canadian waters now

british columbia is spectacular

walking for the cure!

one of our favorite experiences on the ship was the crew. everysingleperson we met was lovely, kind, helpful, so friendly...the next few photo show a tiny bit of the fun we had....

my sister mentioned to our waiter, the only thing she hadn't seen on our great alaskan adventure was a wolf. moments later, as we sat enjoying our g & t's and the stunning scenery outside, this same waiter tiptoed past the window, posing as a wolf! he HOWLED! ooowwww!!

hahaha

hello!

lindy and i

lindy and lori and rose

lindy lori rose and bob!

every evening we sat in the same dining area. and had the same servers, bernado and antonio

this was intentional

:) we had to find out how they did this!

our new friends

thank you guys, what memories we have from your generosity (and good advice on what to order) :)

thank you princess cruise!

we sailed all night through calm seas, under a full moon. waking to the twinkly high rise city lights of vancouver. it was a bit startling, but lovely in it's own way. our cruise ~ tour was over. i learned so many things on this trip, first, that i was sure i was not a cruise person, but i was wrong. what i've shared here was only the tip of the iceberg, of all the things we did, that you can do on an alaskan cruise. there is something for everyone, every age (we line danced and i joined a knit group! we hiked on a glacier!). there is one more reason i remembered to share this post, my travel agent called to ask if i was aware of a cruise, a knitting cruise with mary jane mucklestone. the girls in the office thought i would like to know. oh dear me. i need a second job.

for more alaska! :
alaska
fairbanks
kantishna experience
interior to life at sea
skagway to haines ~ eagles and whales
juneau ~ ice and wool
dancing reindeer (mostly knitting but some reindeer photos!)

thank you for coming along, it is such a pleasure to share! xoxo lori