Monday, June 27, 2011

let the record show..

photo by Barbara Miller, from class Saturday on porch of the Kitschy Stitch.  Oh the colors !
• The Kitschy Stitch class in Rehoboth Beach was full of awesome, see above.  Here's knitter/designer/photo student- for-the-day Linda in her soon-to-be-released pattern Shawlus Maximus . I hope I spelled that right. And didn't over-hyphenate. Gorgeous design, right? Visit Barbara's Miller's blog to see more of her photos from Saturday.
•  next is the special full day east end of LI class, July 9th,  in the good company of Kay Gardiner of Mason Dixon Knitting. Deets & sign up here. Two spaces open. Three if you need'em.  It's worth a day trip from NY if you'd prefer not to take a whole weekend away. (jitney! they drive, you knit! win win! I'll even pick you up and take you back to the jitney depot.)
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The Gaia shawl in Noro Taiyo,in full review.
yarn: Noro Taiyo sock, colorway # 2 (I think)(does it matter, they are all so....Noroluscious)
needles: us 7
yardage left over: none, zero, zippo, nada. In fact I scrounged several yards off other skeins to complete the picot bind off. Careful scrutiny reveals the color change in picotland, above.
finished size: just right
final thought: The Taiyo Sock was incredibly irritating to knit--it spun back on itself like an energized single. (and I can't say that phrase enough, it sounds so weird. Energized single.) But oh the colors and changes?  I can forgive Mr. Noro  his materials' faults for the joy of the shifting hues.

•  I'm on to another shawl, big rectangular,  with my big spool of Valley Colrain yarn. Loving the knitting but not loving working off a spool. Keeps toppling.

• Joan Tapper & I are setting up our events & booksignings in celebration of our new book!
Craft Activism, coming your way in late September. So excited.

Friday, June 24, 2011

really? this is work?

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At the Photographing Your Knits class on Saturday at Webs,(link to next class in July) we played with contrasting backgrounds. Zarzuela's Fibers was our lovely handspun model.
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I am sure those driving by kind of wondered what we were up to. So much fun, and what an awesome class.
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It's not just all shoot, shoot, shoot though.  I finished my Gaia shawl a couple of weeks ago, more views and blab about it in another post. Can I just say? I don't think I'll ever get tired of this pattern & Noro yarn together.

Thursday, June 02, 2011

peripatetic

webs cone at Bartlebys
The setting: my car, last week, speeding north toward a photo shoot in Vermont
Dramatis personae: myself and my photo asst Kelly. She is driving, I am knitting, we are discussing important issues about the history of photography. Oh, ok ,so we're gossiping about other photographers .
We are just slightly north of Springfield Mass. The shoot we are heading to is commercial and utterly unrelated to crafty subjects.
Kelly, in an unexpected subject change: so, I've been seeing all these knitted things. On Pinterest. With huge yarn. Where do you think I could find fat yarn?
Me: hey, get in the right lane. NOW! Take that exit. WEBS!!
Kelly: ...? Webs? What's ...Webs?
(sound of squealing wheels on exit ramp)
Camera Roll-16
Kelly, via phonecam, a short time later. By 1 am in our Montpelier inn, she was cranking out a mondo squooshy blanket in broken rib.
As for me? I chose thecone in the top photo, of Valley Colrain Lace to make a super wide, long  Gossamer Stars  shawl by Kat Coyle. I've been thinking about it for a couple of years but hadn't been able to settle on the right yarn. More accurately, I'd been choosing yarn but always coming up too spendy for the version I want, like 3 times wider and 50% longer than the pattern in IK, more like this fabulous one Kat knit. Even longer and wider, since she is tiny. We hit Webs at the end of their sale, the cone was beyond reasonably priced. For a few minutes I walked around with three cones, two for a Striped Study shawl. Then I got a grip and chose just this  grayish purple, that they call Elderberry, and I made all periwinkly by Hipstamatically presenting it..

Did I mention I'm teaching two 3 hour classes of Photography for Knitters at Webs- one this month and one in July? So psyched! You can take one or take both, we decided to make it easy that way, depending on your time. Info here.

And info about other upcoming workshops, scattered around geographically, here .
Ps the shoot went well, too. Next post, Providence.