november post 1: holland pattern & fibrespace classes coming 11/12&13

I am thrilled to be teaching at Fibre Space in Alexandria VA Nov 12 & 13th 

Thurs evening 6-9 : SmartPhone Photoclass . Not just for knitters, bring a friend!

Fri 10-5  Photo for Knitters & Makers - Tips, tricks, shooting, editing, critiquing - we'll do it all, click links for both classes' details. Limited spaces left! See you there.

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Now, on with the show. Maybe it's the weather or the time of year or the glut of  tempting new patterns going by my field of vision, but I am super inspired to be knitting/making stuff.  For example, I shot this sweater, Holland, designed by Maureen Clark for Green Mountain Spinnery in August.  It has so many good points.

I'll confess, I tried on the sample, I couldn't resist. As you may know, I am shaped not at all like beautiful Josephine, shown here. And yet this sweater somehow looks great on both of us.  That's point 1.

Point 2 - the swingy shape. It's fun to wear. The sleeves are not wide, they are slim fitted, which is Point 3, it doesn't have that saggy baggy overall effect- it works the way Boxy does. The wide  soft V neckline is Point 4- you can wear with a collared shirt or a tank top. A crisp V neck is too preppy for my taste. You could dress this up. Even I could dress this up. It's that good.

Point 5 Beautiful details. The unfinished rolling edge collar, raglan sleeve,  sleeve embellishment stitches. Point 6 it's DK weight, so it's not too heavy yet it'll knit fairly quickly. It's shown in Green Mountain Spinnery Sylvan Spirit, a western (USA) Targee wool and tencel blend. (If you aren't familiar with the Spinnery , you should check them out. They've been doing Grown in the USA and breed specific, thoughtfully sourced yarns for decades, way ahead of the curve).  I love the tweedy gray.  Whatever I knit this sweater in, it's going to need to be tweedy. Maybe in their Mewesic yarn, which is soft and tweedy wool and comes in a really good denim-y shade called Blue Bayou . 

All this sounds so doable- but I am embarrassed to say I've been taking for-eh-vah to knit a simple DK weight sweater that I started in, oh, I dunno, August?  I am only happy that democracy will come to the rescue of my knitting, as I should be able to get some serious sweater time in while working as an election official on Tuesday, during this quiet local-races-only year.

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I just learned that NaBloPoMo is a general thing (I read it on BlogHer) not just a knitblogging thing, as I'd thought. And it stands for National Blog Posting Month.  My track record isn't great but my intentions are solid. I did decently in November 2009. Having just read over the entries from that month, I am cheered by knowing it's possible to come close (I made 25 posts) and also touched by that glimpse into my own life 6 years ago. Only six years! So many changes. 

 Come back and check on me while you're surfing around.   I might just stick with this blogging thing, how about you?