Vogue Knitting Live!

     On April 18 Vogue Knitting Live came back to Southern California after a long absence. This one was at the convention center in Pasadena, which I think was a good choice. It’s not as cushy as the Century City hotel location from last time, but the location was fantastic - right in the middle of downtown. Pasadena is one of my favorite places in Socal - a real city with a lot of history and character and tons of cultural events. I had to sneak out of the house for a few hours to make this so I didn’t take any classes, but spent some quality time in the marketplace on Sunday. I thought that I had taken many more pictures but I ended up with only a few from the event. Near the entrance there were some incredible fiber artists who were exhibiting.  Ben Cuevas was there exhibiting his knit body parts which rise to the level of sculpture. There were two artists who work in free form crochet whose names are not in the program but the work was really spectacular, one making actual murals out of yarn. There was also the adorable Mochimochi Land from designer  Anna Hrachovec.

     One of my first stops was at a lovely soap company called Purplee Naturals. They are mother and daughter knitters who make really lovely soaps and lotions out of all natural ingredients, including some with only essential oils for fragrance. I’m sensitive to chemical fragrance so that’s something I always look out for. I bought a few bars from them.

One of the best things about festivals is discovering new businesses and products. There was a booth called Stuff You Love featuring gift items and notions for crafters. I could not resist this ingenious color wheel.

I’m always having to refer to an online color wheel to figure out combinations, but this is so  much better. It lets you point to a starting color and gives you options based on how many colors you want to put together, or what kinds of combinations, like complimentary, triad, analogous, etc. Each color section also has 7 different values so you are sure to find the one you want. It comes with a handy little guide explaining all of this in detail. I think it’s a must-have to throw in your knitting bag, especially it you’re also a quilter. I got the smaller 5” size but it also comes in 11”.

On of the most gorgeous booths belonged to Pam Powers. I have long coveted her Ruffled and Ruched Scarf pattern and her whole booth was filled with luscious scarves and mitts, many available as kits. I really love not only her romantic design aesthetic but her photography, graphic design and models. The photoes were blown up to large scale at her booth and mad e astounding impression. Since my photos are no where to be found, here’s a link to her latest book Dress-to-Impress Knitted Scarves.

I want to jump in this book and live there

     Next I met the fine folks at the Fiberista Club. This is a unique subscription club that has options for both yarn and spinning. The boxes are curated with a painterly aesthetic and are designed around mood boards which you can preview on their site. The founders both have a dance background and they manage to find fibers that you may not find anywhere else. They also gifted me with this cute little journal made from repurposed publishing materials.

I’m not sure what their relationship is to the publisher Craftside.net, but their web site is very cool.

     My one and only fiber acquisition was some glorious merino from Lisa Souza. 

This yarn is on fire!

She is a prolific dyer who is inspired by the natural world. I got to meet her and her husband at their very impressive booth filled with both yarn and fiber.

     Sharing a booth with Lisa was Cecelia Campochiaro, author of a new reference book called Sequence Knitting.

Cecelia has a science background and explained the principles of the techniques in the book. Through a simple formula it allows you to create new and inventive textures.

     At the very stylish and post-modern Yoth Yarns booth I picked up these adorable little stitch markers.

They’re teeny and perfect for small needles. Along with their yarn line, they have lots of cool notions such as this.

     Vogue knitting was having a sample sale of some of their garments, and look what I found.

It’s the Medallion Wrap from Spring/Summer 2012. It didn’t really register when I saw it in the magazine, but in person it’s beyond stunning, so much so that I declined to buy it. Even though it was quite a bargain at $60 and you can’t even buy the yarn for that amount, I knew I would love it so much more if I made it myself. If you’re reading this blog I’m sure you understand this level of insanity. Look at that pattern!

     The very popular Kunihiro Pottery booth was filled with lovely yarn bowls of all shapes and sizes. I picked up something there a little different for storing sponges by the sink.

          On the way out, the line was finally short enough to stop in at the Vogue Knitting Measurement booth. While it’s true that you have to screw up your courage to look at your accurate measurements, we all know how invaluable they are to fitting garments and choosing the right size patterns. They did 10 different measurements and wrote them on a handy-dandy card.

     Just before I left I made sure to stick around for the Skacel Hikoo contest, promoting their newest yarn line.

Skacel Knitted Teepee

Welcome back to LA Vogue Knitting, we missed you!

Santa Fe

   

     Wow, it’s been almost a month since my last post. I promised myself I would’t do that again, but here we are. Too much fun stuff going on, I guess, so I’ll just try to get caught up here. When I got back from the desert I had to start getting ready for our Spring Break trip to New Mexico. We were going from March 28 - April 4. Sadly for me, that meant that I would only have parts of 2 days to enjoy the LA Yarn Crawl. I realized that there was no way I could go anywhere but the Westside, so I limited it to Compatto, Jennifer Knits, Wild Fiber and The Knitting Tree. I bought one skein of Cascade 220 at the Knitting Tree, that was it. I was heading off to a state with actual Fiber Trails, after all!

     We flew into Albuquerque and drove the hour north to Santa Fe. This was the first trip for all of us to this state. I’d become fascinated with it because of all the fiber events that seem to be going on and the rest of the artistic and culinary traditions. Yes, and Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. We decided to just stick with one place because it’s such a large state, twice as big as NY, and we didn’t want to spend the whole time driving around. Our first stop was at Harry’s Roadhouse for lunch. If that place was any indication we knew we’d be loving the food. We checked into the Inn and Spa at Loretto which is right downtown.

We had gotten a deal through Groupon, which was not all that much of a difference from their normal rates. It’s quite a lovely hotel with boutiques and galleries and a fantastic living room downstairs with entertainment and a fireplace. There were a few annoying things like mandatory valet and a resort fee which added quite a bit to the nightly rate, plus no room safes or jacuzzi (resort, remember), but it was comfortable and a great location.

     We were all really surprised by the all-adobe-all-the-time nature of the architecture here, and it’s pretty strictly enforced by city code. It gives the city a lot of character but I think seeing the same color all the time would make me a little batty. Everywhere you look there is art, including a lot of these kinetic sculptures from an artist in Utah named Lyman Whitaker.

After settling in and checking out the pool and the surroundings, we went to Tomasita's for dinner. It was a little bit outside of downtown but a solid Mexican place with a nice atmosphere.

     The next day was Palm Sunday. We decided to do a road trip up through Taos and on the Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway. On the way was the Santuario de Chimayo, which I discovered by chance at Atlas Obscura.

It's one of the largest pilgrimage sites in the US, especially during holy week. Some pilgrims even walk many miles carrying others to get there. We got there just in time for the end of the outdoor service. One of the features is a shrine with a hole in the ground filled with "holy dirt". It is supposed to be a cure for physical ailments, so we all put some on, why not. We did the same kinds of things in Greece and Turkey when we were trying to get pregnant - mineral springs and talismans and local rituals - something must have worked because I came home knocked up. After that we drove through Taos, which was so much different than I expected, very small like a village, and even more adobe-fied than Santa Fe. We missed out on seeing downtown because we still had a long drive. I would have liked to see the Taos Pueblo. We did stop outside of town for lunch at the Farmhouse Cafe and Bakery.

While we were there we saw a brochure for the Earthship, which is a community nearby of fully sustainable structures which you can visit. On the way there we crossed the Rio Grande and stopped to walk across a very high and scary bridge overlooking the nearly dry riverbed.

A little target practice

     The Earthship community is really worth a visit. There are several of these in the US and it’s also become a worldwide movement to provide sustainable buildings. The houses are fully contained and sustainable and completely off the grid.

Then we headed up on the Enchanted Circle through the towns of Red River and Angel Fire. We really liked the atmosphere up in Red River which was a very piney mountain ski town with clean crispy air - the kind in short supply here in SoCal. The drive was really pretty too, even though there is always a constant jostling for the shotgun seat between my son and me. He’s also at the age where he’s so over Mom & Dad and was always wanting to just stay in the room on his computer instead of going out to eat with us. When we got back to town we took him up on his offer and went to El Farol, which is in a historic building on Canon Rd,  the art gallery street.

The food an ambience were really nice and they had a singer and even some people tangoing on the dance floor.

     The next day we took a city tour on an open-air trolley that left right outside the hotel. The guide gave a lot of interesting backstory to the town history and took us up to the bluffs where quite a few of the town’s museums are.

Journey’s End Monument

He also encouraged us to go see the State capitol building which has a unique circular construction and millions of dollars worth of artwork, which we did later on that afternoon. Everyone there was remarkably friendly and we were free to roam around pretty much anywhere we wanted to.

Peace quilt

For lunch we went to the Thunderbird Bar & Grill which is on the second floor overlooking the town square. We sat out on the patio which was really nice.

We really lucked out with the weather while we were there. The week previous it had been 28 degrees but was in the high 60s and sunny for most of our week. We decided to check out a few galleries on Canon Rd after that. Besides the kinetic sculptures I mentioned, almost every gallery and the town features sculptures of all kinds - they’re everywhere you look.

We stopped for a coffee at Caffe Grecco which is very cozy and has lots of cool local artifacts inside.

We shared a blueberry empanada which was pretty awesome.

     On the way back from the Capitol we came across the Kakawa Chocolate House. They sell drinking chocolate in American and European varieties. We got one of each, the American spiced with chilies.

This is nirvana if you love chocolate, and they provide samples of all the varieties. They also have chocolates and brownies and a lovely space to hang out. For dinner we all went to Maria’s New Mexican Kitchen. It was a bit outside downtown and had pretty standard Mexican fare, though it was totally packed.

     Tuesday we went to Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs Resort & Spa.

This is an excursion that we had all been really looking forward to. I wanted to go on Thursday which was my son’s 13th birthday, but the forecast was for a lot of wind on that day. Tuesday turned out to be perfect. The spa is an hour outside Santa Fe and is really in the middle of nowhere, like most everything here. We had lunch there and then headed into the springs. There are several mineral pools featuring different elements but the first thing we did was head for the mud. It comes out of a fountain like chocolate. You put it all over your body, wait for it to dry and then get into the mud pool to wash it off. We spent time in all the other pools and then chilled out in the hammocks. I met some nice people from Colorado in the Jacuzzi. There were hills in the background where Yuri took a little hike. A really unique and chill place and pretty affordable to come for the day. When we got back to town we had another date night and went to my favorite restaurant of the trip, the Terracotta Wine Bistro. It’s in a historic little house and done up with a French flair, and the food was just great.

     Wednesday we went up to Los Alamos to the Bradbury Science Museum. This is a great place to learn about the history of the Manhattan project and all the scientists and workers who converged on this remote location to carry out a top-secret  mission. It also touches on the reality of nuclear war and the consequences that the people of New Mexico suffered because of atomic testing. We had lunch at the Blue Water Bistro in town.

After that we headed to the Bandelier National Monument to see the cliff dwellings.

This is a really accessible and not too strenuous walk from the museum/gift shop. You can climb ladders and see where nomadic tribes carved rooms and even apartments out of the soft rock. Back in Santa Fe we went to the Palace Restaurant and Saloon.

We choose this because our son was with us and he only eats a handful of things, and I was getting a little weary of all the Mex. It was more like a nightclub and was pretty empty when we were there but picks up later on in the evening.

     The next day was Stefan’s big 13! He was pretty adamant that all he wanted to do was chill. We started the day by taking a long walk up Canon to The Teahouse.

Time to drink tea like a man

He’s a big fan of loose-leaf tea and this place had maybe a hundred varieties, plus various other drinks and a nice menu. The plan was for   the boys to go to our hotel’s spa for massages while I set out on my one and only stop on the New Mexico Fiber Arts Trails. Originally I had envisioned hitting a lot of these places on this trip, especially Victory Ranch, but it was not to be. I drove an hour north of town to the Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center, a non-profit collective centered mostly on weaving but encompassing all fiber arts.

This was a really impressive place, with a large main room featuring locally sourced fibers and yarns, bulk dye material, finished objects from collective members, and books and magazines for sale. There was also an extensive library and in the back a whole room set up with floor looms where they hold classes and workshops. I picked up some local fiber that I plan to spin up  when I decide to break out that new wheel of mine. I was very jealous of this amazing place and really think that LA should have one of its own.  On the way back I stopped by a Nambe outlet and picked up a few things. There is also one in downtown Santa Fe which also has outlet pricing. You’ve seen these pieces everywhere but it turns out they’re made from a proprietary material sourced in NM. I also hit a few yarn stores in Santa Fe. Yarn and Coffee is a cute space with a nice selection and cafe where I picked up some local yarn.

I also stopped by Santa Fe School of Weaving. It’s on the ground floor of a house in town and features not just yarn but dozens of incredible finished items made by the owner herself. For Stefan’s birthday dinner we went to Il Piatto which is a really lovely Italian place with beautiful Venetian plaster walls and at least one genuine Italian waiter.

     Friday was our last full day in town so we wanted to see a few sights and go shopping.

Literally everywhere you look

We visited the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi and the Loretto Chapel with its magic staircase.

For lunch we went to The Shed, which is a ridiculously busy Mexican place near the square - the whole time we were there we couldn't get a reservation for dinner. It was really good, with lots of different rooms inside. As soon as you get to town, call for a reservation. Then we went to the Georgia O'Keefe Museum. There was a film about her life and art that was very illuminating. When you think of her it's usually of the large flower paintings, but there were very few of those there, they're all in museums and collections around the world. This museum gave a window into her life in New Mexico, as well as many photographs that were taken of her. She was one of the most photographed women of the 20th century, and many of the early photographs were nudes taken by her future husband. She was then thought by the public to be a sensualist (this was the 1920s after all), and responded by painting still lifes, including flowers. The fact that these were seen as erotic in nature horrified her, as her motivation for painting them was originally quite the opposite. The rest of the day we walked around and bought souvenirs, and my husband bought a painting from an artist outside the chapel he had seen on the first day. The temperature had started dropping and it was pretty chilly when we walked over to the Cowgirl BBQ.

This place was super fun with a really authentic Southwestern feel. There was a band playing in the SRO bar, and several dining rooms inside and out. They also have an extensive craft beer selection and another room that's a pool hall.

     On the way to the airport we stopped at Twisters which is a local burger/burrito place with locations throughout NM and a few in CO.

The people here were incredibly friendly and remarkably excited that we were enjoying the food. Turns out Breaking Bad was filmed there, which is a source of local pride everywhere you go. The friendliness and openness of just about everyone in our travels in NM was really notable. Very cool place, as I thought it would be. And I have to mention the ABQ Sunport, a pretty and chill little airport which is good place to pick up some authentic souvenirs on the way home.

     

Tennis anyone?

 

     Last week my husband insisted that I go out to the desert and enjoy a few days at the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament. If you’re not familiar, it’s considered the “fifth slam” and draws all the top players to one of the largest stadiums and events in the world. We’ve been a few times, but since we took our son last year and he wasn’t so into it, my DH thought I should just go by myself and have a good time. Which I did. The plan was go to the day session on Thursday, and then on the way back spend a day at Glen Ivy Hot Springs in Corona, which I’ve been wanting to go to forever. They are famous for their mud baths. Anyway, the draw on Thursday turned out to be pretty weak, hardly anyone I recognized and a lot of qualifiers and wild cards. Don’t get me wrong, these can be great matches. I remember going to the qualifying rounds at the US Open years ago and it was great. It was the first round though, and there was a definite lack of enthusiasm around the grounds. The first place I headed was the practice courts to watch one of my all time favorites Martina Hingis getting ready for her doubles match. She looked in really great shape, so much that I wished she would start playing singles again (fat chance). The over to the match of the day which was the return of Mardy Fish playing fellow American Ryan Harrison. I was hard to tell who was the underdog, as Mardy was once a top player but has 11 years on his opponent. It was a really good match and Mardy almost pulled off taking the second set, but Harrison prevailed. It was nice to see him play well but he ended up falling in the next round. Then I headed over to stadium 2 to watch Hingis and Mirza win their match. General admission in this court can get you really close to the action if you can find a seat. I stayed for bits of a few more underwhelming matches before calling it a day. I had been there since noon and had almost burst into flames, but the evening was really nice. I decided then that I would have to come back for the night session the next day to see Serena Williams make her return to the tournament after 14 years away.
   
     I got to the tennis garden as soon as they let the night session in at 4:30 and watched Nadal play doubles. Most of the top players are playing doubles here and draw huge crowds. Then I checked out the practice court schedule. Federer. There was a bit of a line but I finally got up there, one court away from where he was hitting. For tennis fans, he is god. Not a god or the god, just god. After he was done he was sitting around talking to his team and the crowd near the fence started cheering for him to come over. A girl in front of me yelled “yay Roger, the way you sit in that chair!” and we all cracked up, because I think everyone would have stayed around another hour just to behold him. He finally went over and spend a long time signing autographs and taking photos, so I got as close as I could to his highness.

     

     Then I bounced around a few matches before discovering the wonderful lounge chairs in front of the 3 screens showing the matches going on. I thought this would be a great place to park it while waiting for the night match. The life. Then I grabbed  glass of Pinot and headed up to the major nosebleed seats. Now I have not always been a major Serena fan, but I’ve always enjoyed watching her play. Her entrance, though, and the reception she got was really something special. There was a standing ovation that just kept going on and she was clearly very moved by it. And then there was the match with Niculescu, which was surprisingly competitive. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen her play, but it was close and very entertaining at times. Serena ended up winning in a tight 2 sets and the crowd was of course pulling for her all the way, but really showing some love to Nuculescu for some phenomenal shot-making. There was a salute to heroes afterward honoring military and first responders. I stayed for a few games of the Kyrgios/Kudla match, but it was late and I had to drive back to LA that night.
   

     I really feel like I learned how to do Indian Wells this time - here’s a few tips:
*Check the order of play online to see which day and session to go to
*Buy tickets online
*Plan which matches you’re going to hit
*Bring snacks, an empty water bottle, sunblock and a hat, and a seat cushion if you’re in the grandstand seats on Stadium 1. If you’re going to a night session, check the weather because it can get cold.
*Get there early to park/walk/get through bag check/buy a draw sheet/hit the head/fill your water bottle
*Check the practice court schedule and spend some time there
*Try to get a seat where the sun isn’t on you the whole time (it sets in back of the mountains)
*If you’re pooped, plop yourself down in front on the jumbo screens, grab cocktail and chillax.
     This is a very chill tournament, so if you’re in Socal you should definitely check it out. Meantime, I’ve been keeping up with the action on Tennis channel and ESPN. Serena, Roger, Djoko and Murray still all in there.

On Wednesday my back finally felt well enough for yoga so I took Dice Iida-Klein's class at Yoga Glo. I had taken from him before and knew he was kind of athletic, so I took the one hour Level 2. It was an interesting Vinyasa flow where something is added on each time. I think we did about 6 cycles and boy it was killer. He is known for his arm balances and handstands and he threw one in on the mat after all that, but there was no way I was trying it at that point. I was just happy to have made it through the class. Later I had some wrist pain that was probably from not planting my hand down firmly enough, but luckily it was gone by the next day. If a teacher is always getting on you to plant your index finger joint down, that's the reason. 

     I finally completed the roman shade for my bathroom, and it looks really cute. It was so labor intensive and took so much time and table space that I'm not sure I'd do it again. There's a store around the corner form me called Fabric Planet that has a great selection of fabric remnants and trim and also does curtains and alterations. I recently ordered some ottoman cushions from Lowe's to match the chair cushions on my patio furniture, but they are a few inches too long. Knowing how I am with projects like this and wanting to actually use them this year, I think bringing them over there might be a good idea.

     I started 2 new books. The one I'm reading is The Bat by Jo Nesbo.

It's the first in the Harry Hole series. I read The Snowman a few years ago which is the 7th in the series, and it was so good I wanted to read them all. It took me a while to track this down because it hadn't been available in English until recently, and I've collected almost all the others. This one is set in Australia but still qualifies as Nordic Noir.

On audiobook I'm listening to Here if You Need Me, which is the true story of a woman who became a chaplain for the Maine State Forest Service after her husband's death.










As far as podcasts go, I've been getting a little bored of the ones I've been listening to a lot, so I tried a few others on my list, like Star Talk Radio with Neil Degrasse-Tyson and another one called Meet the Composer, which is an in-depth conversation and exploration of a modern composer. There's so much stuff out there that I think it's a good idea to actively search out new things and thenactually listen to them. 

     I finished The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and it's really starting to change the way I think about things - acquiring them, storing them, getting rid of them, etc. While I haven't put the full system in place, I did try one trick about folding things up in drawers and stacking them vertically. This is really amazing and I highly recommend it. My drawer of tops before was a jumbled mess, and I didn't even know what was in there. After culling what I didn't need, I can see everything as soon as I open the drawer and choose what I actually want to wear, not just whatever's on top. I even did my husband's scrub drawer too so he could feel like a Japanese surgeon. Adorable. I really like what she has to say about the less you have, the more you're able to see what you value and what direction you want to go in life.