EEKS!

How time flies. I kept thinking, I need to post something, but last week was a bit scatty and, obviously, I never got to it.

Part of the problem is that I’ve been at the end of several projects you’ve already heard quite enough about so didn’t want to post about them. I’ve had a sweater that you haven’t seen but I’m thinking about submitting it for publication so can’t show you that (although I am wearing it today and it looks loverly!). I’ve been spinning (a lot) but once you’ve seen one picture of a singles, you’ve seen them all. I’ll post about that when I’ve got the plying done (which I’m close to getting to).

Now I did find some Galway (I think it’s color 164) at a local yarn shop and I love Galway. It was one of the first real wool yarns I ever worked with and I’ve loved it ever since. This is in a royal blue which drew me right in so I broke down and started a Gansey with it. Sometime last year I finally broke down and got Beth Brown-Reinsel’s Gansey book and I’ve wanted to get one made for ages. (By the way, Beth is the teacher from whose class I made the Danish sweater.) Since I’ve only got about 10 rows of garter stitch done, I’ve spared you pictures but I’ll get something posted when I get a little further along.

One of the things I’ve been trying to learn is about knitting sleeves from the top down. The sleeves for the sweater I’ve just finished were done this way and I had to rip out and redo about 4 times before I had the number of stitches right. So along comes Beth, wonderful teacher that she is, and says, “Here’s the easiest way to do it. Measure the circumference of the sleeve, leaving out the bound off edge at the bottom, and use your stitch gauge to determine how many stitches you need for that distance.

I mean, how simple is that? How logical is that? How did I not know that? Everyone should know that. Does every knitter in the universe know that? Is it just me or is that a perfectly simple and logical thing to know and why didn’t I know that? Why did I not know that deep in my knitterly bones? Duh.

Anyway, now I know that. For my Gansey I will know that and will use it, oh my knitting hero.

Stitches Report

I wanted to post a quick report about Stitches Midwest, at least enough to say that an interesting time was had by all. We had quite a large representation from our Guild but I wasn’t sure I would run into any of them as I travelled separately from the others. We did run into each other all over the place, making it feel a little like we were taking over! Everyone seema to have really enjoyed their classes. I'm a little sad I missed the Guild meeting on Sunday to hear everyone's reports.

One thing that made the weekend a little more interesting - as if it needed it - is that there was a “Wizard’s Conference” right next door, evidently one of the Comicons. So there were people dressed up all over the place like animé characters and comic book characters. Quite a few Star Wars characters (those seem to be the most popular) but also Batman and Spiderman and, for the ladies, the most popular seemed to be some sort of I-Dream-of-Genie belly-dancer sort of character. One lady in my class came in laughing because she’d just passed a Spiderman with his “head” off smoking a cigarette. Priorities, eh?! Of course, there were numerous comments on the interesting combination of the comic book fans and the knitters. One thing held in common was the amount of money that must have been spent. Wow. Either there are a lot of broke people today or there were a lot of rich people this weekend (or maybe a combination of the two).

I had a wonderful, wonderful class with a lady named Beth Brown-Reinsel. She was so sweet and encouraging and a wonderful teacher. Here are some of the samples she brought to show us:



The class was more than I could have asked for. I learned so much and enjoyed so much the project we did, which was a Danish sweater. The sweater’s history is a bit cloaked in mystery.

They know who knitted it (the wife of turner (sic) Hanson) but not who he was or what he did. The

original – here’s a picture of a reproduction – was made with a worsted weight wool and a fingering weight wool. So it has some interesting definition and effect on the color work. Beth was able to study the original and created the pattern for the large sweater from the original. But for the class, she designed a miniature version that allows the knitter to practice all the components of the larger version – twinned knitted cuffs for the sleeves and neckline, half gusset, color work, following a color pattern and knitting a facing for the neckline slit.

I had a ball and here is the finished product (before blocking):


I’ll post later once I get it blocked. I’ll also post a note of a few of the things I learned during the class and a few more thoughts.