Wednesday, December 17, 2008

New Classes

I’ve got two new classes in the Spring semester at Lincoln Land Community College. One is a repeat of a class we did in the Fall – Knitting with Jewelry Wire and Beads which will be a Saturday morning class on April 4th. It’s been so much fun seeing the endless variety from the students in this class.

The second class is one I haven’t done at LLCC before – Designing Your Own Purse with Knitting or Crochet. This will be a 3 week class on Thursday evenings starting on March 19th. Some people find weeknights better, others prefer Saturday mornings so we’ll try both this time.

I’m really excited about this class which will cover lots of creativity exercises and lots of different techniques. I think 3 classes will be enough time for people to have fun with it.

If you’re in the area and interested, the catalogue should be out soon. Be on the lookout or contact the
Community Learning office.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Bucolic knitting

A couple of years ago, I made this purse (one like it, anyway) for the daughter of a friend of mine. I’ve always loved the look of it. It was made using Brown Sheep Nature's Pride, one of my favorite yarns, particularly for felting. It was felted and the flowers added after the felting. I really love the texture of the green yarn.

Anyway, a while back a friend of mine was talking to me about designing an afghan for her granddaughters and the first thing that came to my mind was this little purse and how cute that could be.

I’m feeling good about this. It was started while watching the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. (OK, it’s not Casino Royale but it’s non-stop action from start to finish – pretty spectacular.) It’s definitely the sort of movie to get a lot of stockinette stitching done! Bonus 50 pts.

In this picture, you can make out the green of the rolling hills, the sky and the beginnings of a cloud. At the bottom left-hand corner, you can see what’s going to be a rabbit hole. There’s going to be a knitted rabbit that will live in the hole – at least one. I haven’t decided if it’s going to be more. With rabbits, you never know, right? Fluffy clouds and cute bunnies…gotta be Bonus 25 pts.

I’ve also used it to practice with the Portuguese knitting style and I’m finding it coming much easier now. Bonus 10 pts.