Mother's Day

It's a made-up holiday, but I like it. We got in the car last night to drive to son #1's house, and I opened the glove compartment to put something in. There was a little wrapped present for me from my husband. What a lovely surprise!! It's just fun to get presents. Of course, whenever I order yarn it's a present for me, and it doesn't even have to be a special day.

Socks Summit registration opened last week, and is almost all sold out already. And I'm happy to say that my Strick-ly Socks class at Stitches Midwest was the first class to get sold out right after registration went live on the internet.

Last week I was in Neenah Wisconsin teaching at Midwest Masters, a lovely little retreat put on by Yarns by Design. Barb Cattani is the sweetest person in the world, and her shop is a treat not to be missed. I was seduced by a couple different kinds of yarn; Madeline Tosh Merino, and a new K1C2 springy stretchy sock yarn. There was plenty more I was interested in, but luggage dictated what I could buy. I was able to see my dear friend from Madison, Connie Burmeister, and we had lunch together 2 days in a row. Everytime I went to the shop she came, protesting that she shouldn't be going, but actually buying something every time!!!

I also had the opportunity to meet and spend some time with the lovely Sivia Harding, whose designs I have admired now for years. I even bought two of them; one of them, a beaded necklace is already finished and just awaiting a clasp. The other is a gorgeous beaded scarf, which lo and behold, I had the perfect yarn for in my stash!! I always say...when you see a gorgeous skein of yarn you like, buy it. You will never know when it will come in handy, but it always will.

Next weekend I will be in Acton Massachusetts at the Woolpak's annual knitter's weekend. I will be teaching, but I'm sure I will be seeing some yarn at the shop that I can't live without. Judy Pascale and I will be driving there, which is a nice change, as we can bring, and bring home, as much stuff as we want without the fear of our luggage being overweight. And we are in the same time zone, which makes things easier too.

I hope everyone is having a lovely spring. It's still not warm enough for me, but my lilacs are almost ready to pick.

Home from Madison

I am home from Madison, WI, after spending a glorious week there with my dear friend Connie Burmeister, teaching at the Sow's Ear in Verona, speaking at the Madison Knitter's Guild meeting, and teaching at the Madison Guild's Knit-In. So where to begin? Connie.

The last time I was invited to speak at the Madison Guild a few years I met Connie Burmeister, as she graciously allowed me to stay at her house, and took care of my every whim. We never stopped talking for a single minute, and stayed in touch via email after I left. She and her husband Wayne came to visit us in CT a few years ago, and we all had a great time together. This last trip she also let me stay at her house, which is immaculately clean, decorated just lovely, and in every respect was just a joy to be in. She is a master cross-stitcher, as well as a master knitter. The first thing you see when you enter the house is a 6' long cross-stitch rendition of the harbor in Copenhagen. Connie is Danish, so this is fitting. It is a masterpiece, and both times I have visited I have spent a long time admiring this piece.

Besides the lovely cross-stitch, there is a usual line of bags of knitting works in progress. We spent many happy hours sitting in her sun porch knitting, talking, and looking at knitting books and magazines.

I gave a presentation at the Guild meeting about my new sock construction that is the basis of my book, Strick-ly Socks. It was well received, and people were quite interested in learning about it, and doing it.

The next 2 days I taught classes at the Sow's Ear in Verona. Heather Black, one of the owners, was a delight to meet and be with. Now let me explain this very unique and beautiful store. The front part is a coffee cafe, with all kinds of delicious drinks and backed goods, as well as light meals of delicious food. Behind the cafe is the yarn shop, filled with all the yarn anyone could want, well displayed, well lighted, spacious and all around WONDERFUL! You can order a coffee, sit in the cafe and knit and sip, then go back into the shop and do your shopping. The classroom at the back was filled with windows and natural light, and we all had coffee and nosh while learning and knitting. It was 2 of the most pleasant days I have every spent. Looking through the shop for 2 days also got me some great yarn that I couldn't leave Wisconsin without!!
You can visit Heather's website at www.knitandsip.com. If you are ever anywhere near her shop, you owe it to yourself to spend a few hours there. It is indeed a rare treat, not to be missed.

In one of my classes at the Sow's Ear I met the editor and creator of KnitCircus, an online magazine. Jaala Spiro is, in every respect, lovely, funny, and delightful to be with. She has published one pair of my socks in the magazine, and will be publishing another in the next issue. I also will be doing a series of technical articles, the first being how to cable without a cable needle. You can go to her website, www.knitcircus.com , to see for yourself the amazing work she does on the magazine

The Madison Guild puts on a one day event called Knit-In every year. This is one of those days that knitters wait all year for...interesting classes, lunch with your friends, and the market. While I told myself I didn't have room in my suitcase for more yarn (it weighed 49.5 lbs coming), I succumbed to some Kimmet Croft Softie, which is 20% angora/80% wool, (the next time I see Kimmet Croft I am going to buy the yarn for the Bohus Wild Apple sweater...this is a solemn promise!) buttons from Blackwater Abbey yarn, and some stretchy sock yarn in bright lime green. Jennie the Potter (www.jenniethepotter.com) had everything a knitter could want, but I knew I couldn't get it into my luggage. As soon as I got home, I emailed her!! She makes lovely pottery with knitting-related designs. Perfect for morning coffee or afternoon tea and knitting.
Always knitting. Knitting goes with EVERYTHING!

For all you Celiacs (people who cannot eat gluten) out there, don't miss the Silly Yak, a bakery that offers gluten-free baked goods. I was able to enjoy a cinnamon roll with icing, and a pumpkin cupcake with vanilla icing. It has been years since I ate anything like that, and believe me, it was heaven.

So...now that I am home, I am back to work on a shawl for Vogue knitting, preparing classes for Stitches South, working on a new skirt, finishing up a sweater using my own Merging Colors yarn (but not merging; 2 strands of the same color....bright purple), and generally getting side-tracked with spinning and quilting.

It has started to snow now, and "they" are saying 3-9". I think I am done with winter, but it is apparent that winter is not done with me. At least I do not have a flight to catch in the next few days.

VogueLive NYC

I am back from the Big Apple,having taught at VogueLive Jan 21-23. What excitement for the debut of this big event!! Anticipation was high, and the event lived up to it all. The hotel was lovely, my classrooms were well lit and comfortable in temperature (even though it was totally freezing outside), and the market was loads of fun, as all markets are!! Alot of us teachers are bummed out, as the next one is going to be in LA, but the dates are exactly the same as the TKGA event in North Carolina in September. We've already signed our contracts for TKGA.

Judy Pacale and I took the new high-speed electric train, the Acela, from New Haven to Penn station. It was fun to ride a European-type train, but the accomodations for the luggage on the train was dismal. We both had very large suitcases (Judy had 2, I had 1), and it was a trial getting through Penn station also.

My next appearance is at the Needle Lady in Charlottesville NC, then I'm off to Stitches West in Santa Clara. I was just in LA a short while ago when I taught at TNNA. I'm racking up the frequent flyer miles, that's for sure.

We are covered with snow, with more on the way. The banks along our driveway are so high that I can no longer throw the shovelfuls over them. Ken had to chop down the banks by the road so we can see when we pull out of the driveway. So...it's cozy up by the woodstove and I am working on my knit skirts for my new class. I also find time to do needlepoint, but I know that I am procrastinating my other work to do that. It's one of my behavior patterns that I am well aware of, but I tell myself that needlepoint is a way for my brain to go on holiday. Speaking of which, Ken and I are cruising to Bermuda in the spring for a little sunshine and down-time.

My famous parrot Go-Go, who has appeared in alot of my publicity shots, has found a new home with a wonderful family up in NH. I have had the pleasure of taking care of him for the past 22 years, and I feel it is time to let others share in the pleaure of it all. I know he will never forget me, and I will never forget him. I also intend on visiting him once he gets settled in his new digs.

You can check out all our snow at my Facebook page. Happy shoveling to all us who live up North!!

Apple pie for today's meal!

Long Time....Finally Home

October has been a whirlwind month, and I've been on the road every weekend. I am finally home until Jan, 2011, and am loving it. October was San Diego, Rhinebeck, a wedding in Vermont, and then Stitches East. I just got back nfrom Dayton OH. So let's back up to San Diego.

The North Coast Knitting Guild is a lovely guild with many members. It was nice and warm there, which was a plus, and I stayed with a buddy of mine, Linda Walters, who I met on my Norway/Austria knitting trip many years ago. We had such fun together talking, breathing, and almost eating knitting! She took me to a wonderful quilt shop, but alas, we got there 10 minutes before closing time. I went racing through the shop, loving everything I saw, but unable to make a decision about what to buy in such a short amount of time. Frustration!!

Rhinebeck....what is there to say.......sheep and wool festivals are the best fun around. Even though I taught for 4 days and hardly got a chance to shop, it was heaven just knowing that right outside my classroom there were 100's of vendors with beautiful things that I wanted to purchase. I did get a chance to buy some beautiful alpaca, 2 bowls with rabbits on them, a Golding spindle (love at first sight because I already have one that I love), and some Coopworth roving to spin on it. My students were so much fun, and were such lovely people. For 4 days I was surrounded by people who loved animals and fiber as much as I did.

My friend Donna's daughter had a lovely wedding in Vermont, which we attended. Because we were not going to be home until late at night I asked a friend to come into the house and put the birds in their cages and feed our bunny. The bunny was no problem, and she finally was able to use human wit over bird wit to get the birds into their cages. But we forgot to tell her is that the parrot is an escape artist. When we walked into the house, there he was, sitting on the back of a kitchen chair! He's able to lift up the little door by his food dish and scoot out.

Stitches East.......another fantastic show where I was surrounded by knit-lovers and gorgeous products in the market. To top all of this fun, the very next weekend was a fiber festival in Massachusetts. We stopped at the booth of Knitting Out Loud, and here is a picture of us.

http://outloudaudiobooks.blogspot.com/2010/11/fiber-festival-of-new-england-2010.html

Here is a picture of me and my favorite fiber-producing animals at the New England Fiber Festival.

I just got back from the Dayton Knitting Guild. What a great time I had with these guild members. Every single one had a fabulous sense of humor, and it seems like we probably laughed more than we knit. We had potluck lunches for both days of classes, but the greatest thing this guild did was break out a box of chocolates every day when people seemed to be fading. After a delicious chocolate (or 2!), we were all ready to get back to work. The guild sent me home with a 1.5 lb box of these chocolates. Oh my!!! I miss all of them already.

The Sock Blank

This title strikes me as sort of funny, as socks are anything but BLANK!! But for those of you who are new to this, a sock blank is a machine-knit piece of fabric about 12" wide and about 18" long. It is knit using two strands of sock yarn. You can dye this blank in any way you like, then ravel it out and knit with it. Some people suggest knitting straight from the blank and doing 2 socks at the same time. I know that the crinkles in the yarn would drive me nuts, so I raveled it out while it was still wet from dyeing and let it dry on my skein winder.

The first step is to soak the blank in water for at least 1 hour, but I always just loose track of the time, and I sometimes remember it the next day. Not to worry; it's always fine. I decided I wanted the socks to come out with lightning zigzags, so experimented with dyeing vertical stripes up the blank. Here is a picture of it partially painted with the stripes. and then raveled and drying on the skein winder.

When the yarn was knit up, alas, I did not get lightning zigzags, but I did love the the look of it.

Tomorrow is another day, another experiment. Today was busy doing secretarial work; I had to book a plane ticket and submit proposals to various places. I did get some time to work on my double knitting. I am teaching a class on this at Stitches East in Hartford Oct 28-31. It is a fascinating topic and very fun to do.

self-striping sock yarn

The other day I decided to dye a 20 yd skein of sock yarn to make self-striping yarn. It was great fun. Here are the pictures to prove it, and the socks came out pretty nice. Of course, it's alot easier to just buy the yarn! I decided to try the two socks on two circulars. It was tough going at first, then I got used to it. By the time I finished the gussets (the bottom side of the toes are shown in this picture), I had had it. I put them on my beloved double pointed needles to finish them off one at a time. These socks are, of course, knit using the Strick-ly Socks method...that is, the toes and heels are knit flat. Everything is started at the base of the toes.

Here's the finished sock. There are diagonal ribs on the cuff, which are hard to see because the bright stripes sort of obscure them.

Stay tuned for my experiment with dyeing a sock blank.