Favorite Places to Knit and Friday Floating Home

As the weather is turning colder and more hands are picking up knitting, I pondered what were the favorite places where people like to knit. A Google search and a journey through some knitting forums yielded the following information.

The usual places people like to knit:

• Sunrooms and screenporches
• Near fireplaces or windows
• In one's favorite chair (one forum writer calls her beautiful chair the Knitting Throne)
• Coffee shops, book stores, libraries, or yarn shops with comfy chairs
• In cars, on trains, or on airplanes
• In theatres, hotel lobbies, sports stadiums, or the local pub
• Scenic or tranquil outdoor locations

Special events:

• Sporting events
• Business or church conferences
• Business meetings
• While stuck on the freeway in a traffic jam

Good to have nearby:

• Spouses
• Cats
• Other knitters
• Favorite beverage and/or non-sticky finger food
• Knitting supplies and stash
• TV, DVD Player, VCR, or computer
• A waiter

Unusual places or situations:

• One clever knitter taught herself to knit while also doing the grocery shopping.
• The same woman knit while waiting in line for a carnival ride and also knit during the rides.
• Quite a few people could knit while walking.
  
• One woman like to knit in hotel lobbies, whether she was staying there or not.
• One forum writer loved to knit while traveling around in the cab of her trucker husband's rig.
• One dedicated woman knits in the swimming pool while sitting in a floating pool chair.
• One curious writer said she liked to knit while sitting on the "coach". Now there's an untried idea.

All this research made me ask myself: If I could be knitting anywhere today, where would I want it to be? A houseboat came to mind immediately. (Probably because I've been so busy lately that I haven't much relaxed, and houseboats are so relaxing.)

My next thought was that I hadn't done a Friday Floating Home post for a while. So here's my fantasy for today: sitting and knitting on board a floating home on the Thames with a hot cup of chai tea and some classical music in the background. It's an overcast day with a chance of rain, but there's a fire in the woodstove.

Houseboats on the Thames, Upstream of Hampton Court - by Jim Lynwood

What's would be your happy Friday?

Blue Friday Houseboat

Gräbendorfer See by Weltsport

This is a floating home in Brandenburg. There's a lovely expanse of water here, but the place looks so isolated.

One of the enjoyable parts of houseboat living for me was being part of a community while still having privacy. To be entirely alone on the water would make me blue.

More Northwest Houseboats

I'm off today for an exciting trip to Eastern Oregon to the Willowa Mountains this weekend. Mr. ChaCha & I will be staying for three glorious days in a lodge with no cell phone service, no Internet service, and no television in the rooms. There may be some hiking and there will definitely be knitting going on.

I'll leave you with a few more photos of Northwest Houseboats. The first photo is a moorage on the Columbia River:

Portland Houseboats by Boy27wonder

The next photo is on Lake Union in Seattle:

Lake Union by cliff1066

See you next week!

Getting Down to the River

Floating homes are usually attached with thick chains or cables to a floating boardwalk, a concrete walkway, or a pier. Most floating home communities in Portland have homes attached to a walkway which has large fittings or cutouts that go around pilings driven deeply into the river bed.

When the river rises during rainy season, the walkway floats ever upward while staying attached around the pilings. The houses and boats moored to the walkway float up as well. The entire lot of homes, walkways, pilings, docks, etc. is referred to as a moorage.

You get down to the river by walking down a ramp that is steeply inclined when the water level is low and that is not so steep during the rainy season.


This photo was taken recently. Since we are near the end of summer the river is low. Notice how steep the ramp is. Also, check out the base of the brick red steel pilings. Notice the difference in coloration at the base. This shows you how high the river gets during the rainy season.

Cars of course always remain on shore. Some moorages have garages and some have funky gravel parking lots. There will be mail boxes on land as well. And a dumpster for garbage.

As a houseboat owner, you'll want a good wheelbarrow or cart to port your groceries down to your house. Oh--and a good rain coat and rain hat for the winter became you cannot manage an umbrella and a wheelbarrow at the same time.

All groceries and purchases (including that 3-piece leather sectional you had to buy) get carried down and garbage gets carried up.

It take a hearty sort of person to live the lifestyle of the river, but what a glorious life it is!

A Boardwalk Photo by Phillie Casablanca

House Afloat

When your home floats on water, it has to be tethered to something so that it doesn't just drift away. It has to be floating far enough off shore so that the underpinnings don't snag up on the river or lake bottom.

Most floating homes are in communities of like-minded water enthusiasts who often refer to themselves as river rats. I know this because I once was one.

In the Pacific Northwest, a floating home is often colloquially called a houseboat, and its tenants, houseboaters. Although some purists would call the type of homes above floating homes and would reserve the term houseboat for a motorized pontoon boat similar to this:

Houseboat photo by riffraff67

How are the houses in the first photo kept from drifting downriver? What are they attached to? How do you get down to the river? Where do you park your car? These are some questions that will be answered in the next installment of this "Floating Home Friday" series.

Floating Home Fridays

Moon Over the Willamette River by Tokiko Anderson

Is floating in the title a verb and home the direction?

One could imagine floating home after a a summer's eve ball where all the ladies wore white gowns and the gentlemen wore tails. The magic of dancing under moonlight and the remembrance of the eclectic music could cause an ethereal feeling while you meander home in a blissful state. I know this is true because is has happened to me.

More literally, if you had a little house along water, you could imagine floating home in a wee boat with your hand dangling in the cool water. Or if you knew how to pilot a hot-air balloon, you could surely float home in that.

What if, though, it is the house that floats, and floating is an adjective? This is the topic of a little series that I intend to pursue, on a regular or irregular basis on Fridays and which I hinted at way back when. It has nothing to do with my creative life--or does it?

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Image Information: This is a print that I bought from Tokiko on the Last Thursday Artwalk in the Alberta Arts District of Portland. Tokiko's work really speaks to me. See more of her work by clicking on Tokiko's name in the image credit above.