Chickenlips Knitting

I'm back from Southern California, still feeling warm sun and hearing cool jazz. While visiting Abuelita's in South Pasadena, I became acquainted with Ulli. She's a talented knitter and lovely person originally from Austria, who not only could name a handful of yarn shops right here in Portland, but also knew all about the annual Seattle to Portland Yarn Train! It made me do a double take, because I figured I'd probably seem like a hayseed in uber-hip Cali. I know, I've gotta get out more! We are DIY Central though, and I'm proud of that.


Ulli also introduced me to some nice music - she was playing a Madeleine Peyroux CD in the shop, "Careless Love". At first I thought it was Billie Holliday singing, that's how good it is! Stitchjones into jazz, you say? Not to worry. I still have deep reverence for all things headbanger, but I am over 50 after all. Plus, the music goes with the climate down there.



The last thing we did before heading back to Bob Hope Airport in Burbank (so tickled to have been to/seen places named for celebrities! I was only ever through the Ted Williams Tunnel, formerly the Sumner Tunnel, in Boston) was visit the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena. Really awesome place to visit if you're interested in Asia, which I have always been, ever since I was very young. Back then the door between the US and China was firmly closed. That's why the exhibit we saw, "China Modern", was so enriching. This exhibit coincided with the Shanghai Expo, so a whole part of the display was about young Shanghai ladies in product advertisements of the 1930's. Shanghai was a modern, progressive city of the era, and the images of young women smartly dressed and coiffed in ads for soap, fabric, etc. were striking. However, when I saw this cigarette pack in a glass case, I was absolutely blown away.




We also saw beautiful pieces of textile, pottery and art from China and Japan. I took special note of the bowls and dishes in celadon. As a lover of color, I have under-appreciated this shade of blue-green. In the authentic pieces, the color stays closer to one universal shade than I imagined. It's a bit tricky to create this shade with consistency in yarn dyeing; each type of fiber received the color differently. Here's the results of last week's color play:


Felting Wool Worsted (formerly Grand Design Worsted) in Lemongrass - yellowy chartreuse, more traditional yellow-green with celadon as an accent


Baby Alpaca DK

Glam Sock

There's a bit of gray showing on the Glam Sock. Not sure how I feel about it yet; it seems to make the blue-green appear dirty, which is counter-productive, if anything.