All that glitters is knitters

In between the time that I've last posted I've been on a tour of some of the biggest names in knitting.  

Nancy Bush was at the Windy City Knitting Guild in February.  I love her.  She's a wonderful storyteller and had a wide range of knitting knowledge.  Talked about Sock Summit and where her sock knitting started and how that led into Estonian knitting.  It was amazing.  The class itself I found ok.  Heels and Toes.  We spent about 3 hours knitting heels, but no talk of fit or wear.  All those wonderful socks from the books - have never been worn!  NEVER!  Ah!  She is a process knitter :)

Token picture of some Nancy Bush Socks

I also got to meet Knit Purl Hunter at Mosaic Yarns - after completing ALL of her amazing Skacel KAL patterns, it was great to learn directly from her, instead of through a YouTube video.  Thanks Michelle!  She even held up my tons of kept projects (about 1/3 I gave away to friends and family - lucky ones).

We did a little mystery sock.  It's Celtic Cables and I have just finished the heels.  What a wonderful day.  

Socks in Progress

Then for my birthday at the end of March I went to see Miss Babs at Loopy Yarns in downtown Chicago.  It was a good trip with a bunch of my knitting friends.  They are all so great.  And all the color!  I love Miss Babs' stuff.  Here's what I got - TardisH yarn and LIME GREEN ROVING.  Hurray!

And I've been so excited about the roving - I worked through it a little.

Last weekend I got to meet Cookie A and was pretty well featured on her blog!  Here's a pretty awful picture of us - but meh.  I love her just the same.  I wish I stopped talking to get a good shot. 

I have to say Cookie was pretty amazing too.  High energy and a genuine LOVE of her subject.  I took the Cable Suckage Factor class.  It was very mathy and made that design of socks with cables attainable.  She's a smarty every day.  We laughed a lot and knit a lot and measured some.  This was again through the Windy City Knitting Guild.  It was a good deal to join.  They are a wonderful group of women.  I think I might have met about 80% of the knitters in the county now.  

Now the big news.  

I've been not posting because I was burnt out from work - end of fiscal year meant lots of extra work & a lot of burn out.  But our group rocked it - deadlines met and clients happy.

I've got a pattern coming out in the 2013 Knitting Pattern A Day Calendar.  A Toe-Up Garter Chevron Sock :)  I'm thrilled!  

I need to work on a 2014 pattern.  Thinking about my Penguin Christmas Socking and my Pirate Christmas Stocking.  :-D  That would kick butt.

I am going to teach a beginners sock class at Fuzzy Wuzzy Yarns starting on May 16.  Thrilled!  If you haven't knit socks before, you will leave the series of 3 2-hour classes with your first sock.  Worked in DK yarn - Simplicity.  :-D

Happy Knits!

Awesome News & Stitches Midwest

I must congratulate Lion Brand Yarns & Yarncraft podcast on 100 episodes! And for Ep 99 they gave away a crochet book and a mini loom. I won the mini loom! Hurray. That really brightened my day of training. It was a rough day and this was a highlight!

So August was great for another reason - Stitches Midwest. A friend of mine hosted a weekend up at her cabin for the knitting gang. I did not go, I had volunteered for Halos of Hope & I had paid for events & a class at Stitches. So a handful of knitting friends went up to the cabin, but a good group of them were in Schaumburg IL for Stitches Midwest. I went to the Market Preview on Thursday, which was a nice way to shop. They open the market place a day early for students. Shop in a quieter environment. I would say if you are looking to shop with ease, Thursday or Sunday afternoon is the way to go.

Thursday was good shopping, I did 75% of my shopping then, buying sock yarn in pairs, some Lorna's Laces Solemate, Socks that Rock Lightweight and Holiday Yarns. All different and amazing. :-D I met up with a knitting group friend who had a class and didn't go up to the cabin for dinner. We ate in the hotel and dang - tasty and reasonably prices. We talked about a bunch of stuff & she introduced me to the Knitting Pipeline and Paula was at Stitches! I found a new podcast. I love her voice & she's so nice. Listen to her if you've got room on the mp3 player!

Friday I popped in to drop off my raffle ticket for Fri & see if I could find my knitting gang/Stephen West. BTW - one of them is stalking him. Anyway - It was crowded and parking was bad, so I didn't look - just walked out again & grabbed bite to eat. Then back to work. I came back to the hotel in the evening for the PJ party. I hung out with the Halos of Hope Prez and the gang from Fuzzy Wuzzy and sat with the family of Cascade Yarns! Shannon is so sweet, her mom and grandma were so nice. I had so much fun with the knitting gals. The PJ contest involved animal calls. I should have done better. :-D Next year I'm making some slippers too :)

On Saturday I came in early to meet up with Ms. Knitting Adventures and visit Halos again and shop a little. My shopping technique really was to shop stuff the drew me in. I would not enter every booth and examine every object, but be selective. It worked well, but I do wish I had gotten a drop spindle. I hung out until it was class time and then I went to my Design Your Own Triangle Shawl with Brooke Nico. Brooke is a great, high energy, enthusiastic, make it work kind of teacher. She was great. A few people sitting next to me got up and left, as though designing is easy. It is not. I walked out of the class with tons of ideas and nothing on my needles. I wanted to sit down with my compy immediately and start playing in excel/knitting software. Yup, I got that last year after stitches. I haven't used it much, but I love it. I like excel, as a math nerd, but it has limitations.

I then shopped a little before the Saturday Night Student Banquet & Fashion Show. I sat with Lily Chin & she told me she thought my Stephen West KAL shawl was classy. :-D I was glowing, she's so talented and wonderful. My table was nice and talkative and fun. The fashion show was great, such talent. But I swear the women who won the prizes for the fashion show this year, won them last year too. Big colorful shawls and sweaters seem to win. Maybe Rick's predictable. Totally not my thing, but I loved all the ideas and pride that everyone showed.

My Saturday haul was 2 pairs of free socks and packer sock yarn and a Lucy Neatby Sock DVD. <3 Sunday was my volunteer day at the Halos of Hope Booth. We talked about Shark Hats, gave away free hat patterns and took pictures of the Fuzzy Wuzzy mascot at Stitches events & booths. :-D Then I stuck around for the cash drawing - which I did not win, but a Fuzzy Wuzzy gang member did! Excellent! Then I went to the Ms Babs booth and took a skein home. Yeah :-D She does amazing things with color. My Stitches Haul:

Haven't worked with any of it yet. What would you work with first?