In the Mountains and Clouds

World's-most-patient-husband and I were in the mood last week for a quick getaway and decided to take a driving vacation. I, though, was a little anxious about losing a week of spinning time. I'd just added all that new spinning fiber to my stocks at the Fall Fiber Festival and there was another much-anticipated fiber festival coming up very soon. World's-most-patient-husband, unprompted, bless his heart, said "why don't you bring along the spinning wheel?" I took him up on that one like a shot.

So we packed up and drove south through Virginia and right on out the bottom. Then we turned west and headed for the North Carolina mountains. The weather was cold and rainy; often the mountains looked something like this. But that's beautiful too, in its own way, and we were happy to be wandering. We played it by ear, deciding each day where to go the next.

We spent one night in Boone, the home of Appalachian State University, which turned out to be full of small, unexpected pleasures. It has antique shops and a crafts gallery and an honest-to-goodness old-time drugstore counter where you can sit and have a meal. It has a shoe store that also serves as a yarn shop, a combination I've certainly never seen before. It has a hundred-year-old general store full of knitted goods and hiking clothes. Having come on the trip well supplied with handknits but without anything for such wet and cold weather, I was grateful to find myself a warm waterproof jacket there.

It has an excellent cafe for breakfast and lunch called Melanie's, a little funky and full of character, with bright colors and interesting art and fifties dinette tables. Everything, but everything, there is home-made, down to the granola and the yogurt on the fresh fruit cup.

Then it was onward. The foliage was just beginning to change, and the views were occasionally breathtaking. We took a small and very scenic road that wound its way circuitously among the mountains, past Blowing Rock, a beautifully situated town with lots of shops and restaurants.

We made our way on to Asheville, a place I've always wanted to visit, but had somehow never made it to before. It turned out to be a bigger city than I pictured, a little bohemian and artsy in personality, and rich, it seems, in brewpubs. We spent an afternoon at Biltmore, the enormous mansion built by the Vanderbilts at the turn of the century. It is quite something. It's just a bit reminiscent of Versailles (though bigger!) Almost as impressive as the house are the grounds, designed by Olmstead, who is also responsible for New York's Central Park.

We wandering around afterwards in an area nearby known as Biltmore Village, where all the shops and restaurants are built in a quaint German style -- even the couple of fast-food chain outlets are in character. There we chanced upon this inviting sight: the aptly named Yarn Paradise. And what would a trip be without a little yarn-shop tourism?

But, perhaps luckily for me, it was already closed for the day. After all, I'd packed the essentials with me on the trip: four knitting projects and three batches of spinning fiber. I didn't want to chance running out.

The shop did look awfully appealing when I peered in through the leaded panes of the front door, with gorgeous sample projects, beautiful yarn displays, and what looked like a warm, welcoming atmosphere.

Back in downtown Asheville, we had a top-notch dinner at a stylish spot called Posana. Oddly, it seems to be more of a coffee-shop with light food during the week and only serves dinner on a couple of nights. I get the feeling it may be a brilliant new place just on its way up. In any case, I can't stop thinking about the trout with sun-dried tomatoes and capers I had there, and the walnut cake with orange-and-tea-flavored cream. It was a happy find for us.

After a couple of nights, we turned and started working our way back toward home, searching for barbecue along the way. I realize that, ironically, I was leaving Asheville just days before people gathered there for the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair, but sometimes a near miss is what comes of impulse traveling. I will just have to put it on my list for some future visit.

Oh yes, Rastro the spinning wheel did get a work-out in several hotel rooms. With the wheel, and a duffel bag of accessories, and a giant tote bag of fiber, and a separate large knitting bag, I was quite a cumbersome traveler. But it was a lot of fun to sit and spin here and there along the way.

If I'd brought a stool and the weather had been better, I might have set it up who-knows-where. Scenic overlooks off the highway?

Maybe next trip. :)

Into the Woods

World's-most-patient-husband and I got away from our normal haunts for a weekend recently. We journeyed to Blackwater Falls State Park in West Virginia. What a beautiful place. So distant from the bustle of our daily life. Only the rustle of the brush and the rush of the water.

The falls are powerful, and the water is stained "black," evidently, by tannin from ancient trees.

On the way to the park, we saw signs of energy production old and new: coal mines and windmills. I didn't realize that we had windmills already in operation in this part of the country. Yet here they were. These things are enormously tall.

Later, as we drove around, we had dramatic views of a whole bank of them along a ridge against the sky.

Once we arrived at the park, we got to the falls by a hike through dappled woods, with moderate terrain, lots of mud, and even a bit of scrambling up and down rocks. It was only a mile or so each way from where we began, but harder work and a longer time than I expected.

I don't know why I forget that ferns are a woodland plant -- I know they didn't evolve simply by living in pots -- but here they were in profusion. The path grew iffy at times, and we missed seeing the yellow blazes that marked it. The beautiful surroundings seemed almost spooky then, when we looked around and saw trackless woods in every direction. But we knew we weren't far from the road into the park and could have clambered across to find it if we had to. That didn't turn out to be necessary, as we managed to backtrack and find the path again each time.

If I were a skilled dyer, I would have been inspired with lots of new colorways. I saw them everywhere, in the mosses and barks, in the stone, and sometimes in strange red mushrooms.

As we left the park, tired, hungry, and ready to head for the town where we would stay that night, expecting to settle for fast food or a chain restaurant for dinner, we spotted a surprising and welcome sight: a brewpub. World's-most-patient-husband slewed the car around instantly. I don't think we squealed the tires.

And Blackwater Brewing Company is quite a good brewpub, with the brewing equipment right there behind the bar, excellent ales, and a specialty in good German food. I had a very nice porter, most fortifying after my afternoon walking in the woods.

We were even more surprised, as we drove away later, to see a second brewpub beckoning within a few miles. We really hadn't expected such a rural area to have so much quality beer to offer. We were ready to make a beeline to our hotel, though, for showers and relaxation, so we didn't stop and can't vouch for that one.

It was just an other-worldly and refreshing day and the kind of thing we should do more often.

Where Wanderlust, Unchecked, Can Lead

To Paris!

Yes, to gilded, beautiful, Paris, France. We had something of a big family occasion that needed celebrating, so economy be darned, we girded ourselves and went.

For me, it was a week of much gawking and taking in the major sights -- the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Versailles. I also had ample chances to take my schoolgirl French out for a spin. It was once reasonably respectable but is now, after years of neglect, rather rusted out. (I once knew verb conjugations other than the present tense. Sigh.)

No matter, the people I tried to communicate with were commendably tolerant of my lapses, and often ridiculously helpful.

I stayed too busy sightseeing to do much shopping, and so I have something of a consequent dearth of fiber-related news to report (this despite the temptation offered by one guidebook that for mysterious reasons takes the trouble to point out a shop where whatever wool one might need can be had).

I will say, though, that among three women in our party who embarked on the airplane, there were five handknit garments being worn. Not a bad showing.

And, based on my observation, Parisian women do wear scarves with unmatched style. They make it look so good, it's really inspiring to try it out at home. I may have to think about adding a light-weight scarf somewhere not too far down in the knitting queue.

And of course I had to have a small portable knitting project for the trip. I did have a couple of books for the plane, but it's nice to be able to switch between reading and knitting at whim. So I also carried along some yarn from home.

I was reading Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, about his years in Paris, so that I could catch references to places that we might see. But honestly I am no great fan of Hemingway. Those stark, stripped-down sentences that he strives for -- searching self-consciously for "one true sentence" -- don't paint much of a picture for me. And his descriptions of other writers seem rather cruel. I wonder what they thought of this arrogant newcomer.

So now I have a very well-traveled sock-in-progress.

You'll have to take my word for it that these are the stones of the pavement beneath the Arc de Triomphe.

They are.

Magic Carpet Ride

Lately, we here in the Yarnstruck household have been thinking yearningly of distant parts. World's-most-patient-husband and I like to travel and it's been a while since our last vacation. So we've been wondering about destinations. Or maybe I should say wandering about destinations. Because travel planning in the modern world is a whole new experience.

It used to be that to find a hotel in a faraway city, much depended on luck. You could rely on a travel agent (hoping you'd picked a good one), you could choose one of the very few hotels (among the city's very many) lucky enough to be listed in a guidebook, you could consult friends and family, if you were lucky enough to have any who knew the place well or -- hitting the jackpot -- lived there and could give you a place to stay. Or you could arrive at an airport or railway station and trust to your luck with the local tourist information office or the last-minute hotel discount touts. I've tried just about all of these options, with reasonable success. The one thing I never have done is to go the backpack-and-hostel route. I like my comforts.

Now, I can conjure up hotel websites, look at photos of the reception areas and bedrooms, check booking sites to see how many rooms are available at what rates, and look at a slew of chatty reviews by recent guests, greatly reducing the uncertainty about whether the hotel will live up to its carefully chosen description and pictures.

And then, what about the environs? Is it on a busy road, or is it leafy and cafe-lined? Well, to top it all off, I can take a magic carpet ride and see for myself. With the Streetview feature of Google Maps. My magic carpet. What an amazing tool it is. Oh, I've used it before when I'm driving to an unfamiliar address, and I've looked at the streetscape ahead of time so I can recognize the building when I get to it. That's amazing in itself, of course, but in a mundane, workaday-ish sort of way.

Flying my Streetview carpet to a hotel destination is a whole different kind of transport. I float along up and down the street to locate the address. I peer around, looking at the adjacent buildings, craning my disembodied eye up to the rooftops and back down again to the street. Eerily, I fly onward, hovering just above the road. I follow the nearby streets looking at the nearby neighborhoods and businesses, getting a feel for the area. It seems kind of quiet; oh, maybe it's early morning -- there's a street cleaner and the light is still pale and gray. And all this is endless miles from where I sit.

What an astonishing world it's become.

(Try it! Look up a hotel somewhere in London or Rome or New York. Or perhaps in Tacoma Washington, the Hotel Murano, remarkable for its art glass collection, that just recently played host to the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat.)

Playland!

And a wedding. What more could you ask of a weekend?

This weekend we drove north to a green and pleasant suburb of New York city. On the trip up, construction on Route 95 afforded us plenty of time -- hours, in fact -- to enjoy a few miles of Delaware highway scenery. Plenty of time also for making progress on the conveniently portable Mockery socks, anyway.

After a restorative night's sleep, we found ourselves, with time to spare before an evening wedding, only a few miles away from a low-key treasure, Playland Park in Rye, New York. Playland is an old-fashioned amusement park, opened in 1928 and situated on the waterfront on the Long Island Sound. It featured in the 1988 Tom Hanks movie "Big" as the abandoned amusement park where the boys go in search of the fortune-telling machine.

With gracious old architecture and pennants flying and wooden rollercoasters and a house of mirrors and tall shady trees and mini-golf on the water and hardly any crowds, it's a gentler experience than many modern attractions.

But that's not to say it lacks thrills. It has scary things. It has rides that shoot you up in the air and jounce you around and make you giggle. It has a flume ride to spray you with water and a plunge ride that sends up a splash to drench you right down to the underwear.

It has rides that give you views out over the Sound when you're aloft.

It has bumper cars and a little train. It has a ride that sends you swooping through the sky strapped in face down as if you were really flying. It has hot dogs and an ice rink and fountains and a singing and dancing show with Elvis Presley songs.

And there's nothing sissy about those wooden roller coasters. They hurl you around tight corners and tease you with shallow bumps then hurtle headlong into sudden steep troughs. Sometimes they creak, so you wonder how solid they are. On the Dragon Coaster, the car is swallowed up into the mouth of a dragon and you veer wildly from side to side in the darkness. Wonderful.

And then, after a hearty dose of Playland fun and a bit of cleaning up, there was a wedding to enjoy. With a lovely serene bride whom we remember as a flower girl in a bygone wedding. Flowers now in her hair, and a level gaze of contentment, and a gown made by her proud mother. A thrilled groom, taking deep breaths to steady himself. A verdant garden setting. A sweet sister singing a heartfelt song. A lucky clear summer day with a breeze and, later, a momentary sprinkle, just enough to make a rainbow for them.

A reception later with raucous, happy friends and relatives and loads of dancing.

Truly a lovely day. And at the end of it all, a flower arrangement to remember it by. It's a little the worse for wear from the long ride home on a hot day, bounced around once or twice, but still so pretty.





On the way home, the socks came this close to being finished. They'd be done now but for needing three or four more rows of room in the toe after all. So there's a little more to do.

But all in all, a great weekend.

Las Vegas Sockery

Las Vegas must be one of the strangest places on earth. I speak not of the suburbs, of course, where probably perfectly rational people live, but of the famous casino-lined Strip.

It's not a place I would ordinarily seek out, but it's nevertheless a place from which I've just returned. World's-most-patient husband and a couple of boyhood buddies had organized a quick weekend trip for a few couples to meet there. And once you're engulfed in its crazy theme-park atmosphere, with the pirate ship, and the dancing fountains, and the Roman statues, and the singing gondoliers, and the Eiffel Tower, what can you do but just surrender to the whole tongue-in-cheek fantasy of the place?

I lack the urge for games of hazard, so, for me, Las Vegas is a place for nutty sightseeing, eating out, and shopping. Where else could I wear flowered capri pants in an eye-splitting coral pink? And where else would I feel they really needed a pair of golden sandals to set them off? A temporary aberration, I assure you, but fun.

With long airplane flights on the agenda, I needed a compact travel project again. Awash in spinning and dyeing, I had nothing suitable in progress on the knitting front. I turned to socks. Temperatures in Las Vegas were expected to be around 100 degrees Fahrenheit, so I thought of cotton.

I happen to have Knitpicks' discontinued Dancing sock yarn still lying around in a couple of different colorways. It's a summery yarn, about half-and-half wool and cotton, with a little nylon for strength and elastic for bounciness. I think I opined here once that it felt inelastic to knit with, like pure cotton, but that was a calumny. Well, not a calumny, maybe; it wasn't maliciously false, just false. Though I blamed the yarn at the time, it actually may have been the Jaywalker sock pattern that was uncomfortable to knit.

This time, I had the Mockery sock pattern from live2knit on the brain. (I'd seen it on Lime &Violet's Daily Chum, a wonderful blog of which I've recently become an enthusiastic devotee. Honestly, how do they find all this stuff every day?) The stitch pattern creates an elegant texture without bulk. I knew there was a good chance that the delicate pattern would be swallowed up by the bright, blippy color changes in the Dancing yarn. Truthfully, the pattern would probably look best in a solid color. But I figured I'd forge ahead. After all, I needed to knit something with that yarn. I guess I could do plain stockinette socks, but where's the challenge in that?

So I packed up the bamboo needles and dipped alternately into my knitting and a book of English Country House Mystery stories as the miles flew by beneath me. The Mockery pattern was easily memorized and agreeable to knit. The unjustly accused yarn was resilient and perfectly inoffensive. The colorway, while not necessarily a favorite of mine, looks as if it will go well with jeans.

I did have one bad moment. Somehow, in changing from one double-pointed needle to the next, I fumbled a little, and one needle sprang out of my hands and disappeared. I thought it had fallen into my lap, but inspection there was fruitless. I started having visions of long taxi rides to yarn stores for replacement needles. Before long, I had world's-most-patient-husband and the seatmate on the other side searching the seat cushions, and I down on the floor on my hands and knees, posterior skyward, feeling around desperately for my fugitive needle (and no doubt providing light entertainment for some of the other passengers.) Eventually, one of my random floor-pats dislodged the needle from alongside some sort of metal track where it had hidden. So we were reunited, and I clutched the needles more tightly for the rest of the flight.

I can't say I got a tremendous amount done on this trip; it wasn't really that kind of destination. A little cool and cloudy weather might have done wonders for the knitting, but it was all blazing, cheerful sunshine. I did get this far. The strong color changes are distracting, but if you look closely, you can see the mock cable pattern forming in the actual stitchwork. It may show up better after being blocked or in the actual wearing. Or then again, it may not.

But at least I'll know it's there!

A Few Distractions

What's been keeping me? One might well ask.

Well, there's been a little bit of this. Enjoying the company of our little visitor, all tuckered out in this picture.

Like any dog, she's always good for some entertainment. One evening, I found her curled up next to a red potato. Where she got this treasure, I don't know. And why. But don't the two of them seem cozy together?

And there's been some of this. Hosting family for the holiday. That's always great fun, though it does take a little time away from the knitting schedule.

But it's well worth it. There's much hilarity, not to mention the traditional making of blue lipstick out of robin's egg malted milk candies.

There's been some of this. Visiting the in-laws, who a few years ago got restless and betook themselves to a warmer place, where some of the trees wear Spanish moss for jewelry, others spike their hair in fronds, and the golf carts run wild.





There also, unaccount- ably, are some of these. For no obvious reason, their community keeps a small herd of pet buffalo. Yes, buffalo. I hear tell that they have a soft, downy undercoat that's lovely for spinning, but I wasn't even tempted to pluck these fellows.

One of the highlights of the trip was feeding the buffalo some carrots, about which they seem quite enthusiastic. One shoulders the others out of the way for a chance at the vegetables. He takes a carrot gently, showing a neat, even row of lower teeth, and occasionally sticks out a black, leathery tongue to help things along.

On the way, there was plenty of time in places like this (it took flight delays to make it look so deserted and calm). Airport time brought the travel knitting project back into play.

My travel knitting project of the moment is a pair of Merino Lace socks from the Favorite Socks book, using Schaefer Anne yarn on US size 1 needles. The yarn is a little thinner than the one the pattern calls for, but I thought the design might be stretchy enough that it wouldn't matter. It seemed to have lots of give when I tugged on the partial cuff. I whizzed along on the first sock until the heel was turned and then tried it on, just to be sure.

The stitch patterns looked nice, but the sock was a little too tight. I could have persevered and left it as is, but I would never really have been happy with it. I took a picture to remember it by, took a deep breath, and ripped out every last stitch, much to the amusement of my in-laws' cats, a minor complication I hadn't anticipated. But we got it done without any serious mishap.

I didn't think this yarn would work well in a larger gauge, so I stuck with the US size 1 needles, added some ribs to the design to gain a dozen stitches in girth and started over. That seems to be working out fine. I'll take a picture when it gets a little further along.

Happy trails!

Before We Leave the Beautiful Northwest...

From Seattle, we headed down to Portland and Eugene, Oregon. World's-most-patient-husband is a major fan of track and field and needed to see the most vaunted of all track venues, the University of Oregon's Hayward Field, where the U.S. Olympic trials will once again be held next year.

We stayed busy enough to miss out on actually setting foot in any Oregon yarn shops, though we had a near-miss at one in Eugene called Soft Horizons. Thankfully, though, we did not miss out on one of the local brewpubs. It was just a bit too late in the evening when we got to the yarn shop, but it looked like a nice one. It's in an old Victorian house with a wrap-around porch, which I clambered up on to take a peek inside. It looked warm and colorful, with turn-of-the-century-style chandeliers. There were also signs of potential spinning supplies. I could see a spinning wheel in there, the cute little Louet Victoria, which, as I learned chatting around at a festival earlier this fall, is pretty portable at only six pounds!

With my suitcase bulging with yarn from the shops I'd already hit, it really wasn't all that tragic to have to just admire the shop and move on. Especially with Powell's City of Books waiting for us back in Portland. When I went for the first time to Portland on a quick business trip a few years back, Powell's is the first sightseeing stop people recommended to me. Can a bookstore really be that amazing in this day of enormous stores like Borders and Barnes and Noble everywhere? Yes, it can. Of course, you can buy from Powell's on-line, but it's just so much better to be there in person, to lose yourself browsing around in those huge rooms, with all the new and used books shelved together and never knowing what might turn up. Stack after stack of tall shelves of knitting books. Sigh. I kept it down to four and felt virtuous.

Near Portland in Washougal, Washington, was a real treat: a factory tour at Pendleton Woolen Mills. Note the rainy, depressing November weather we'd been hearing so much about. :)

If I'd gone a couple of years ago, I might not have been that excited. But since I've taken up spinning, it is absolutely fascinating to see how it's done on a commercial scale. Wool is still wool, and has to be dyed, carded, and spun. Of course, this is 250-pound bales of wool. Imagine having to dry all that after soaking it in a dye-bath! Carded batts of fiber are still batts, and roving is still roving. Of course, these batts are continuously generated and are probably miles long. And this roving is spaghetti-thin, so they can make the very fine gauges of yarn used in commercially woven and knitted goods. The strands being spun sometimes break, just like at home, and marvelous little machines rush to repair them. It's really something. If you do visit some time, the tour is free, but be sure to buy something in the mill store afterwards, to help support it.

The factory is tucked right alongside the Columbia River Gorge, an unbelievably beautiful place, with lovely sights like this. It's the upper part of Multnomah Falls, even more postcard-perfect with the changing foliage. We had lunch in the stone lodge at the base of the falls, next to a towering window, watching the play of the water and mist.

It's also salmon-spawning time, and you can see them right there as you walk across the footbridge near the bottom. They were surprisingly a gorgeous dark crimson in color. Repeated attempts to get pictures were foiled by the movement of the water surface beneath which they swam.

One thing that struck me as being very different from here on the East Coast is the moss. Here, trees may have light dusting of moss on the north side. In the Northwest, the moss is so thick, it's shaggy! And in this case, it's helped along by the ferns growing in it.

All in all, it left me wishing I could come back again next year, perhaps for the Black Sheep Gathering or the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival. It's probably not going to happen, but it never hurts to daydream, now, does it?

Another Day, Another Shop

On our third day in Seattle, encouraged by the world's most patient husband, I took a taxi across town for a visit to Tricoter. Why there? Because, having seen books by owners Linden Ward and Beryl Hiatt (Handknit Style I and II, Simply Beautiful Sweaters) during long bookstore-browsing sessions, it was the one Seattle knitting store listed in my Shop Finder that I'd heard of. That made it as much knitting-world-sightseeing as shopping.

Alighting from my chariot-for-hire, I saw a tidy facade flanked with potted topiaries. My aforementioned patient husband hied himself to a nearby coffee shop to wait it out.

Venturing inside, I reeled a little. Busy, busy, a warren of customers buzzing at and around three tables. Both owners and a large staff were on hand. The yarns were arranged all along the walls in a boldly-hued display by color. It took some getting used to, but after browsing around and orienting myself for a while, I realized that it lent itself to choosing yarns for projects in creative combinations according to color family and texture, with a fine disregard for manufacturer or fiber content.

Flipping through the owners' books there on display helped give me a better feel for their mixing approach. In fact, I had happened to wander in on the day of the launch of their newest book, Handknitted Skirts, and in addition to what seemed to be the normal commotion, there were wine, cheese, and fruit adding a touch of celebration.

For me, to tell the truth, the whole kaleidoscope was a little bewildering. I persisted, though, thinking, when would I have another chance? They did have lovely things, and I found a toehold in the few display stands arranged more conventionally by yarn type. Still in sampling- rather than big-project-mode, I gravitated to single skeins of yarn for socks or shawls. I found Blue Moon's Geisha silk blend. I succumbed to another colorway of the siren Handmaiden Sea Silk that had tempted me the previous day. In a clearance drawer, I found a small but lovely discounted skein of Jade Sapphire Mongolian Cashmere. I'll look for something small but lovely to make of it.

The luxury yarns fit the personality of the shop -- well-heeled and fashionable. The owners and staff were hospitable and helpful. But I almost felt myself being looked up and down by some of the other customers and found wanting. I'll dress up more next time! I promise!

I gathered my finds, and, as a travel souvenir, also bought a copy of Handknit Style II, graciously autographed for me by both owners, before finally beating a retreat and catching my breath.

Later the same day, we trekked back to funky Belltown to have another go at So Much Yarn, a shop that I'd spotted but hadn't succeeded in visiting a couple of days before. Thankfully, the atmosphere there was much more relaxed. I enjoyed having a look around but had perhaps a bit of sensory fatigue from the previous shop. Sadly, I felt a little yarned out. Nevertheless, I did appreciate seeing Claudia sock yarns, Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool, and some locally hand-dyed yarn. And the shop truly deserves credit for being the only one of the three I visited in Seattle that offered any unspun fiber. They had color-coordinated variety packs of roving for felting projects. After looking around for a while, breathing in the welcome calmness, I bought a couple of pattern books I'd been wanting, and called it a day.

I headed a few doors down to the perch that world's-most-patient-husband had found for himself, ordered a glass of wine, and mentally put my feet up. I can't remember when I've had such a surfeit of yarn in a day. It was time to sleep the sleep of the jet-lagged and righteous.

Happy Times in a Seattle Shop

I set out last week hopeful that I might luck into a yarn shop somewhere along the way, and with the Washington State and Oregon pages of the the Knitter's Shop Finder clutched firmly in my hand. I didn't want to eat up all our vacation time looking for one, but you just never know, do you?

Our first night in town, we had dinner at Steelhead Diner (excellent food, definitely recommended) right near the famous Pike Place Market. After all, we know our duty as good law-abiding tourists. Afterwards we set out walking up 1st Ave. toward an address that looked as if it might not be terribly far away. We eventually fetched up, slightly footweary but undaunted, in front of So Much Yarn, in an area called Belltown, as I later learned. Our timing was off; they were closed for the night. It looked inviting, but I could only peer through the glass, admiring the fat bundles of bulky wool in the front and wondering what was beyond. No matter; one day in town and I'd found a shop to gaze upon. I didn't ask more than that.

The next day, there was un-yarn-related sightseeing to do. Car-less, we jumped a tour van to the amazing Boeing facility where they build the big airplanes. For entry, you have to stow away all your stuff, and present yourself innocent of electronics, cameras, purses, knitting bags, and the like, but I did manage to squeeze in some good sock-knitting time on the trip up.

Later, back in town, we hopped a ferry to get out on the water and visit nearby Bainbridge Island. Chilly winds and beautiful views ensued. Arriving at nightfall, we walked up into the town of Winslow and headed for a yarn shop serendipitously spotted in a town directory brochure. I halfway expected it to be closed as well by the time we got there, but light streamed from the windows of Churchmouse Yarns and Teas and there was still one precious hour to go. (No picture; I was too excited to stop and think to take one.) The shop was wonderful, with a table to gather around right up front, and colorful, rich, finely detailed Fair Isle garments displayed in the windows and everywhere. There were lots of yarns to love: Rowan, Debbie Bliss, Blue Moon, locally hand-dyed silks, Handmaiden. I dallied for a while with a Handmaiden Sea Silk in stormy blues, but drifted off inconstantly to a Malabrigo laceweight.

Best of all, for me, there was Jamieson's, in several different weights and a good smattering of its many, many colors. I couldn't tear myself away from the Shetland Spindrift. I'd often thought of ordering it; I'm interested in true, traditional Fair Isle and have spent many hours reading and dreaming over patterns. I hadn't had the opportunity, though, to see the yarn in person at the local yarn shops I frequent. And there it was. I wasn't prepared with a pattern picked out and really don't need another complete sweater in the backlog, but I had to have at least a sample of this yarn. I started plotting about what kind of small, modest project I could do that would give me just a taste.

One of the knowledgeable and pleasant staff members suggested a tam. Wonderful! I pounced on that thought and happily set to work considering colors. Just a couple that I really love. I just want to try it, after all. Plum and a heathery purple mix. Maybe these three. A heathery violet. A teal to pick up some of the flecks in the purple. Four, then. Four are enough for a nice simple Fair Isle pattern. A wine, though, would add a beautiful deep note to the mix. OK, fine. Five. It would be silly to let some arbitrary limit hold me back from a really glowing assortment of colors, varied and harmonious.

A staff member stopped by again, a wisewoman and a diplomat. (She didn't say, your collection of analogous dark colors will be dull and inert, but she thought it. ) She looked at my selection and said, you know, sometimes it's good to include a light color that contrasts, to really bring out the darker colors. Look at this sweater here and how the pale yellow color lights up the center of the motif. She was right, of course; the pale yellow didn't glare but made the whole tapestry of tones luminous. Obviously, a bit of color counterpoint was needed. A pale green? A brighter red? Finally, I settled on a burnished dark gold. Yes, six. You really have to have six colors for any reasonable Fair Isle effect.

OK, never mind that tams generally look ridiculous on me. I wear a smallish hat size and a tam juts out too far on all sides, looking like a lid on my head. I don't care. These colors will make me a gorgeous tam.

And the "tea" part of Churchmouse Yarns and Teas? Sure, it was right there, but I was in another world. I can't really say that I even saw it.