Hail to the King!

In this case, hail to king bolete, Boletus edulis, commonly known as porcini mushrooms. A friend who is a devoted mushroom hunter found a lot of porcini at a secret spot that he will not reveal. We are fortunate that he kindly shared two porcini with us. These, he said, are two of the smaller ones.

Earlier this year, we found morels in our front yard. Sometimes we find chanterelles at local farmers markets.

Good eats!

Warming a Cold Shoulder

How do you warm a cold shoulder? With a shoulder shawl. This one is the Gracie pattern from Myrna Stahman's "Shawls and Scarves." I made it with about 600 yards of hand-dyed worsted-weight yarn on US10 needles. It came out 18 inches long down the back.

Shoulder shawls are the perfect solution when you need a little warmth on the shoulders but not too much.

Yes, the lawn is brown. Water is for the tomatoes. The grass will revive on its own.

Wool and Wine

Oregon's Yamhill Valley has much to offer, especially for those interested in wool and wine. Start with Woodland Woolworks in Carlton for all things knitting, spinning and weaving. Yippee!

Then the wine areas, such as Domaine Drouhin Oregon's manicured vineyards.

The tasting room manager gave us an informative tour of the vineyard and winery, which concluded with a comparison tasting of the winery's Oregon and French wines. Our friend Michael took very seriously his job as wine taster and research assistant.

At the Carlton Winemakers Studio, we tasted one fabulous wine after another from several wine makers. A dinner at the studio featured J. Daan wines, made by the young and talented Justin Van Zanten and his wife, Megan.

A Shocking Pink Skeleton

The first time I saw Donna Druchunas's book "Arctic Lace," I knew I would have to knit her Skeleton Scarf, but I knew it would not be in qiviut.

For me, this scarf screams, "Drama!" What's more dramatic than bright pink? The yarn, from deep in my stash, is wool, very fine. It's a deeper pink than the photo shows, almost a shocking pink or darker hot pink. US3 needles. I made two changes from the pattern: I used centered double decreases instead of left-leaning, and I knit four pattern repeats instead of three.

Landscaping

Last night, the charming and talented Sonya from Yorkshire Yarns invited me to talk about my favorite pattern, the Landscape scarf from Fiber Trends. Little did she know that I can talk about this pattern for a long time. I've blathered in the past about how much I like this pattern, and welcomed the opportunity to blather to a new audience at Sonya's Monday night knitting and crochet group. Fortunately, Sonya's shop offers a stunning selection of yarns suitable for this pattern.

In short, I like the flexibility of this pattern. I've made it with lace weight, fingering, sport and DK; with solids and variegated; with wool, cotton, tencel and blends. I've made it with as little as 250 yards and as much as 500. I've made it with and without picots. I've made it with beads instead of picots. I've made it with tassels.

The scarf also offers an opportunity to shop for beautiful and complementary shawl pins to fasten the tails in front.

Bagel Day

Nancy and I made some dough on Monday — bagel dough. We made 4-1/2 dozen bagels — plain bagels, onion bagels, garlic bagels, sesame seed bagels, poppy seed bagels and sourdough bagels. We made them the way bagels should properly be made, with a yeast dough, then boiled, then washed with egg, then baked.

Bagels do not have blueberries, cranberries, jalapenos, sun-dried tomatoes or pumpkin. You're welcome to mix all of those things with dough and shape it like a bagel. I'm sure it's very good, but it's not a bagel.

Our bagel-baking with a success. We enjoyed them at dinner with lox and cream cheese, then again at breakfast with butter or cream cheese and homemade jam.

Our next team baking experience will be Italian crackers called streghe (witches).

Nancy for Nancy

Friends Nancy and Michael spent the last 17 years sailing around the world — real seamen. So who better needs a seaman's scarf? Nancy chose the Nancy pattern from Myrna Stahman's classic, "Stahman's Shawls and Scarves."

Yarn: Jamieson's Ultra, Natural White
Needles: US5 for pattern tails; US4 for ribbing

This Way Lies Madness

Two thousand yards of cobweb. On sale. How could I refuse? I didn't. Still contemplating what to knit.

This way lies madness.

Glorianna

Okay, it's been a while since I've posted. I've been knitting while traveling and hosting house guests; I just haven't been finishing.

But here I am with Glorianna, one of the trio of scarves in JoLene Treace's Elizabeth I pattern. The particulars:

• Yarn: Haneke Select, 75% merino, 25% alpaca, 2-ply thin spin; 2.4 ounces (440 yards).
  
• Color: Deep-Deep Brown (Dk jewels). It looks brown from a distance or in dim light, but close up in good light you see many shades of brown — sort of brown that has exploded.
• Needles: US4.
• Finished size: 9 inches wide by 50 inches long.
• Number of pattern repeats: 24.

Qiviut on the Hoof

The Large Animal Research Station in Fairbanks studies musk ox and caribou to protect the animals and their Arctic environment. This bull is one of the "greeters" at the station. The little guy is one of this year's babies.

The facility also sells qiviut, made from the undercoats of the station's musk ox population. Yummy stuff, qiviut.

Oomingmak

No trip to Anchorage is complete without a visit to the Oomingmak Musk Ox Producers' Co-Operative. Beautiful work made with the incredible qiviut yarn. I haven't made any qiviut purchases — yet.

Yarn Shopping in Anchorage

It took less than a day to find and visit a yarn store in Anchorage: Far North Yarn Company. Great shop, great people. This beautiful yarn is from Rabbit Ridge Designs in Anchorage. The color is Rainforest, with rainforest colors representing the water, trees, lichen, moss and forest floor (at least that's my idea of a rainforest).

Traveling

First trip to Alaska! Follow our adventures — knitting and otherwise — here.

Hummers

This is the kind of hummer I like to see. Rufous hummingbird, maybe. Whatever kind it is, it puts on a spectacular, noisy aerial display, checks out the feeder and occasionally hovers to check out the people who are checking it out. Did I say noisy? We usually hear this one before we see it.

Arum Flowers

Arum flower doily from "Magic Knitting," published by Mon Tricot, 1984. It's possible that this is a design by Herbert Niebling, but it is unattributed in the magazine. It is charted, without line-by-line directions.

Specifics: Knit with Cébélia DMC, size 30, natural color, made in France, 2.25mm (US1) needles. Approximately 22 inches in diameter.

This pattern drove me crazy. Of the 96 rounds, 7 or 8 of them have errors. I don't know if the errors were in the original or occurred in copying from an original to the magazine. At the same time, parts of the chart that initially didn't seem correct were absolutely correct.

I learned two things from this doily: Trust the chart. Don't trust the chart.

Going, Going, Gone

If this is not one of the ugliest Douglas fir trees you've ever seen, I don't know what is. Last winter's wind storm really took its toll. So, it's good-bye fir tree.

Watching professional tree trimmers who know what they are doing makes you realize that there is no good reason why amateurs should ever attempt this. First, Mike limbed the tree from the bottom up while Sam the Boss and Frank put the limbs in the back of a truck to be hauled away.



Working around the power line required tree-trimmer ballet.

The top came down:

The debris piled up in the truck:

And this is what is left:

The whole process took only two hours. It appears that the plants underneath (rhododendron, barberry, juniper, fatsia) will survive.

Retirement: Day 1

Retirement is great so far. At work, the traditional retirement send-off is a coffee-and-cake reception. Then I celebrated with work and non-work friends at a local pub. One of the great things about my job is that many of my colleagues are also friends. I thoroughly enjoyed my career. I'm optimistic that retirement will be equally enjoyable.

Retirement!

Today is my last day of work, after 30 years with the same organization. Whew! It's been fun and rewarding. But it's time for something else, whatever that is. Knitting, of course. More time in the garden and at the library. Travel in the U.S. and the rest of the world. Who knows what else is in store?

And what better way to start my retirement than with beautiful handmade gifts! My friend Debbie made this gorgeous quilt hanging. Yes, the flower is 3-D.

She also gave me this intricate and lovely pine-needle basket made by an Oregon artist. It's about 7 inches long and very tightly woven.

The Flowers that Bloom in the Spring, Tra-la

The flowers that bloom in the spring in the Northwest are fabulous. Early bloomers include daffodils, tulips, lilacs, camellias and rhododendrons, plus the flowering fruit trees. The color riot in our garden begins in earnest in May and June.

Columbines and pansies. The pansies survived our cold winter and the columbines take care of re-seeding themselves every year.

Pink jasmine. You really need to smell this one for its full effect. This is a new addition to the garden this spring, replacing a clematis that succumbed to winter.

Roses. This one is Double Delight. If you want a beautiful, fragrant rose for cutting, this should be at the top of your list.

And, surprisingly, a Christmas cactus. I have no idea what I did to prompt a May bloom, but there it is.

Score!

I love thrift stores and used books stores. Not every visit results in a big score, but one did — two 1985 "Knitters" magazines. I especially enjoy reading the articles by or about some knitting legends: Barbara Walker, Lizbeth Upitis, Mary Walker Phillips and Priscilla Gibson-Roberts, for example. The articles are still relevant and most of the patterns are as wearable today as they were 22 years ago.

I wonder whether knitters in 2029 will say the same about today's knitting magazines?