What a lovely day Karen and Brenda of Grey Heron store put on for their Knitfest 2011 day. I taught a class on top down knitting and then we added in patterning. A jump for most of the knitters but they were terrific sports and I hope the stretch in their knitting abilities takes them further on their knitting journey. I'll let Brenda tell you about it on her blog http://brenda-bjhf.blogspot.com/

I'm having a lovely day knitting, ripping, knitting some more and ripping some more.

Frog pond casualties. Are we having fun yet?

Progress on the hand-painted. I'm working stockinette stitch and I just can't leave this alone. A little bit of colour makes a big difference I guess.

I'm on the bottom ribbing but have to abandon it for a few days because . . . I'm teaching an all day workshop in Collingwood with Grey Heron shop . It's based on the

and we are going to knit a basic baby top down cardigan and then we are going to knit a second one and play with it by adding stitch patterns. A little bit of designing  (not that scary d-word) creative knitting which everyone will be able to do. I'm looking forward to it. I need to knit up a couple of small samples to show one or two techniques and then I'm ready to go!
-Deb

I did make a little tiny sweater out of the new cotton/acrylic fingering weight yarn Saucon we're now carrying. It knits up really nicely.

This is the basic top down out of the Need A Baby Cardigan? booklet . A simple knit which looks great in fingering. I knit it with a 2.5mm needle and could have gone up a size quite easily. Next time.

Went button shoping today so these sweaters will soon have buttons, soon, really soon.

If I write it enough times buttons may actually happen. I do want to wear both of them. And then I just have to write up the patterns. Piece of cake. Really big piece of cake! I've started so one step at a time and it will happen. (One button at a time doesn't really work!)
-Deb

Big sweaters, little sweaters, lots of sweaters. I finished knitting a sweater which now needs buttons, knit a little newborn sweater (no photo) and now have started another sweater.

It's done with hand-painted wool. To stop the pooling of colours you are supposed to work with 2 balls, 2 rows with one ball and then 2 balls with the second ball, carrying the yarn up (or in this case down) the edge as you work. But that makes all the carries on one edge. So I'm using 3 balls, one row each. This has me carry yarn down both sides of the V-neck. I thought this would be really awkward but it's not too bad. I keep 2 balls in my knitting bag separated by a book and then put the 3rd ball beside me. I keep the wool from the two balls untangled by changing how I pick up the yarn when I start using it. The 3rd ball I untangle as I need to. Sounds complicated but it's not bad at all.

 The colour is nicely distributed. This is KnitEast wool, a 1 ply softspun from Briggs & Little, dyed by Fleece Artist. I'm loving it. It still has the little bits of vegetable matter in it because B&L don't do an acid bath to burn it out. They try to keep the chemicals down. It's nice and soft and the colours are fun.
-Deb

It's official, it's a sweater. Now I can go button shopping. And the next task is to get out my calculator and do the math since I made so many changes my original layout is not going to work now. But I have a sweater for myself!! Good timing since today I had my winter coat on.
-Deb

Don't you love this moment? The moment when you're garment actually looks like a sweater.

Even to a non-knitter it's apparent what it's going to be which is not the case in the early stages of knitting. To me it always looks like the finished garment right from the start. It's as if the whole garment is there in outline and as I knit I'm filling it in. But for the non-knitters it's a complete mystery. Maybe that's why we're a little difficult to understand, doing this knitting thing with such enthusiasm.
-Deb

When I've been away I come home and have to clean something. Is this some sort of nesting thing? My mom will be laughing because I'm a dreadful housekeeper and unless I go away I do almost nothing all the rest of the time. I tackled the junk drawer, actually 2 junk drawers because I was looking for pantyhose. I don't wear them but I keep several packages around for this time of year. I cover the furnace vents with the cut-off legs because it keeps the mice out of the house in the fall. I live in a very old house with a crawlspace underneath and this really, really works. In the first junk drawer was what I would expect: shoe laces, take-out menus, warranty pages, fuses, birthday candles, etc. The second drawer was the surprise. I took out 12 handfuls of used twist ties. Not those neat rows of twist ties that come in the garbage bag package, they were there too. These are all used, 12 handfuls. I'm not sure what rainy day would require this many twist ties but we are prepared!!

I'm working on my square neck cardigan. I'm doing a size for myself first to see if it's going to work.

So far I'm liking it.

I want to see how it blocks out on the back and if I like how it looks. I have another plan if it doesn't work like I hope it does. I'm get some more knit tonight. I need the sleeves done to really see it.
Deb

On the way home

We're on our way home. Somewhere in New Brunswick. It was dark and very wet. Somehow we did manage to find Debi in her new store, Wool Inspirations, in Harvey Station. I think we've trained the car - or the GPS - to find us yarn shops. Unfortunately, again, completely forgot to take a picture of her cute little shop. Wonder if we could train the GPS to take photo's?

Today Deb and I will make the run right across Quebec (and try not to get turned around in the construction around Montreal) and into Ontario with tomorrow seeing us home. Yea!

-Lyn

The Road Trip continues to continue ...

We set out on Thursday to visit more stores. We stopped to see Helene at the Wool Emporium in St Stephen’s (and I completely forgot to take a picture, my apologies) and what a blast it was to walk in and the first thing we see is our books out on display. It's still such a pleasure.

After that we paid a visit to the local Tourist Information office for some directions and had a chat with Michelle of Fondle Knits's, Dad! It's a small world isn't it? Dad is very proud and Deb tracked Michelle down at the show later and had a lovely chat. Then we were off to St John to visit (another) Trish. 

Trish of Trish's Crafty Corner

 It's the kind of place where you just want to sit down and knit ... and guess what happened?

Cyndi, Deb & Alli

Having had a lovely break at Trish's shop we booted it back to St. Andrews. We'd been warned about driving in the dark as moose are a major driving hazard. Sadly we didn't see a single moose but we did see two white-tailed deer the next evening driving back to our hotel (we were driving, not the deer).

Up bright and early on Friday to set up for the show. 

 Ta da!

After setting up the show opened for 3 hours. There were a lot of seriously happy knitters! Anticipation was high for the weekend. There was a reception in the hotel after the show preview and we met up with our friends Elizabeth & janie h and inspected their goodie bags which were full of amazing stuff. Said "hi" to Lucy (Neatby) as she did book signings with Stephanie Pearl McPhee and Cat Bordhi (If you don't know Lucy, she's the one with the hot pink hair).

Donna, of Cricket Cove, is amazing. The show was beautifully organised and she gave us a wonderful welcome and a great position for our booth. We've had a tremendous weekend so far (it's now Sunday morning), Deb took a class, I watched a dye demo by the Hand Maiden (daughter of Kathryn) we got caught up with Kathryn (the Fleece Artist), we hung out with Amy of Good Karma Yarns (great yarn) and Diane and Susan from Lucy's booth, we've eaten lots of fish and tried out the various local beers. We'll be at the show till 3:00pm today, pack up the booth and make one more store visit on the way out of the province. Whew!

-Lyn

East Coast Road Trip continued!

But the day isn’t over yet (I'm still working on Wednesday)! We jump back into the car and arrive at St Andrews by the Sea, in time for a quick look before the sun sets:

Deb at sea ... tee hee

Thursday morning we head over to see where KnitEast is going to be held ... lovely place isn't it?

-Lyn