Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

I mentioned the Leicester longwool in the post about Maryland Sheep and Wool. I have an upcoming swirl jacket class at The Whole Nine Yarns. I've worn my first swirl jacket a lot . I thought that this time when I teach the class, it would be fun for me to make myself another. I'm also trying to knit from stash because, really, I do not need more yarn. The problem, of course, is that one doesn't need more yarn, but the next project in the queue seems not to match any of the yarn in the stash. Why is that? With some consideration, I did decided I could make my jacket using two handspun yarns already in my stash. #1 Blue-tiful:  #2 Louet Northern Lights: I also decided it would be fun to have a trim of long locks around the outer edge of the jacket. Fortunately, I took Esther Rodger's "Tailspinning" class at STITCHES South this year. And I took Merike Saarniit's "Microwave Rainbow Dyeing" class last year. So I know a little bit about how...

I am very fortunate that there are several weekends I look forward to each year. One of them is, of course, STITCHES South. The older I get, the more I know the calendar lies, because it can't be possible we've just finished the fifth STITCHES South. I signed up for Almost the Works. I've done The Works once, and while I love taking classes, that is a lot of classes even for me to soak up in one weekend. I'm finding that Almost the Works is the right pace for me. This STITCHES got off to a bit of a bumpy start for the organizers, as some of the nice XRX people were stuck in Sioux Falls SD due to a late-season snow! I know everyone was very grateful to arrive in Atlanta, and not just to see proof that spring does exist. Rick Mondragon was one of those delayed, so Laura Bryant gave the Opening Day talk instead. This did not bother me at all, as I had immediately acquired her new book Artful Color, Mindful Knits . Those of you who have many hand-painted yarns in your...

In the past I've blogged STITCHES South as individual posts for each day. But this year, I'm going to do it a little differently. I know a lot of people go for the market. Mostly, I go to STITCHES for the classes and the networking. The convention attracts truly talented knitters -- both teachers and students. It is so much fun just to watch what people are wearing. This year I took four classes. On Thursday I took "Embed and Embellish: Felt, Stone, and Bead Jewelry" with Sharon Costello. I must admit that by the time the convention came around, I could not recall why I signed up for the class! It must have been the beautiful pictures in the brochure. I had not done wet felting before, so this was new to me. My friends Debra and Linda were also in the class. Most of the students were very familiar with wet felting, and they were eager to move along. We learned how to layer the fibers and how to encase rocks or pieces of smooth glass inside the felt. Most of the othe...

In spite of the teaching being done, I still didn't sleep all that well on Saturday night. The convention is just so much fun, and my head is racing with ideas that all need to be worked out now, dang it! For Sunday morning I took Carson Demers "Ergonomics for Knitters" class. I believe I had asked for a class like this on last year's feedback form. Alas, I don't recall the name of the knitter, but I sat next to someone who was wearing a beautiful blue, purple, and green Ann Feitelson Fair Isle cardigan. Hmmm, maybe it really is a good idea for the air conditioning to be turned up. Seeing a sweater like that in person makes you want to throw everything else aside and give Fair Isle a try. Carson's class was exactly what you would expect. He did a wonderful job explaining what ergonomics is and what risk factors to watch. I got a little lost with some of the anatomy lesson, but it was fascinating none the less. And he had several videos of people knitti...