Same old stuff with socks

Saturday was the day for A Knitter's Fantasy in Youngstown, OH. This is a one day conference with classes, lunch fashion show, and MARKET. I taught two classes; Mosaic Knitting and Pattern writing. Both classes ended early when I ran out of info to teach them, but they were happy. The morning class went to the market and the afternoon class went home.

I got paid in Market money and bought Nancy Marchant's Brioche book and a skein of Cherry Tree Hill Sock yarn.

I finished the socks I was knitting. I called them Dreaming of Violets, but the pattern really is Grun ist die Hoffnung by Stephanie van der Linden. The yarn is Aussi Sock. The sock starts with the lace motif on the foot. The toe is knit, then the sole of the foot, then the heel. The leg is stockinette and the lace ribbing is a pattern from a Japanese knitting book.

The home remodeling is moving along. The crew has finished with patching the hall, and the walls are painted. Woodwork painting starts tomorrow.

The daffodils mean that yard work season is starting. Leaves to rake, Weed to dig up, new flowers to plant. Warm weather to enjoy.

My latest sock is knit from yarn bought at the Guild Yarn Hop last year. It's Crystal Palace Panda Silk, a combination of bamboo, superwash wool, and silk. The pattern is a Chrissy Gardiner pattern from Interweave Knits that I've wanted to do for a couple of years. The yarn is luscious.

Knitter's Fantasy & designing

Knitter's Fantasy
This was held on Saturday April 4, 2009 in Youngstown, Ohio. The work of organizing is rotated among 3 guilds. Our guild puts it on next year. It makes lots of money for us. We spend it on things like bringing Lily Chin in to teach for a weekend in May this year.

I taught 2 classes; Chart reading and Great Beginnings and Endings. Chart reading starts with reading various simple charts, knitting swatches from them and finally charting from a written pattern. Great Beginnings and Endings takes a number of cast ons and teaches bind offs that mirrors them. I kind of muddles that class. My notes and the handouts have been improved. All classes that I teach are kept in notebooks, one per class. I keep swatches, pictures and other miscellaneous stuff in each notebook. I also have a bag of big yarn, needles, crochet hooks, etc. that I use for teaching. It makes it easy to repeat a class.

What did I buy at the vendor market? Not much yarn. I don't have time to knit up what I have. However, a set of Kollage square sock needles followed me home. I like them! I wish they were 6" instead of 5", but I'm adapting my grip so I don't get poked. The points are nice. They're light weight metal, but not slippery. Mine are copper colored.

Family Easter
It was a fairly quiet day. No wild egg hunts and other little kid festivities. We went to Erie, PA for dinner with quilting daughter, a 2 hr drive each way. Nice day for a drive! I finished knitting the baby sweater. On the way home, I was crocheting a dishcloth and dropped the hook. Could not find it! I had not escaped the car, but was hiding. I finally found it Thursday after thinking of more places it might have fallen. It was trying to hide under the floor mat. I have more hooks and discovered that I was working the pattern wrong anyway. My girls like dishcloths, so I'm trying to make a few for Christmas gifts.

Socks for Plymouth Yarn
I did up a few swatches and they like two of them. I'm waiting to hear more.

Red socks
I finished one and have toe #2. Lace knitting will proceed today.

I started swatching a lace shawl for Oasis yarn. He asked for a trapezoid shape. The base pattern looks great. It's from one of my Japanese books. I need to get more than 4" knit, so I can play with edgings. The swatch is purple, a color I have lots of. The shawl will be black Aussi sock. I should get it started by the weekend. Deadline is mid June for the TNNA show.

Knitting along, U is for...

Christmas stocking
The Christmas stocking is finished. Here's the progress picture. The stitch pattern is from one of my Japanese books. The basic stocking is a pattern I've been using for family stockings for 35-40 years. This stocking is #26 in the series. Within a family the stocking colors alternate red, green, red, green. Each stocking is unique. The guys get stripes of some sort. The gals get something more pictorial. Since no 2 are alike, the series can go on as long as I'm able to knit. Here's the finished stocking.

U is for... undressed trees
The trees have been partying in their prettiest clothes, but now it's time to go to bed for the winter. They drop their clothes at their feet, or sometimes they are scattered further about. Soon they'll all be naked and asleep.

Excitement at work
A couple of months ago, the truck that empties the dumpster had an accident. It seems that when they raise the dumpster, the truck is put into neutral and the motor gunned. When the truck is in reverse instead, this happens. The hole was covered with plywood for quite a while, while insurance was worked out, bids were gotten, etc. One day work started. When all the damaged wall was removed, it looked like this.

There are 4 roof supports in the picture. I watched the wall be put back together. The original hole took 15 sheets of plywood to cover for the night. The building houses a car repair garage, so had to be secure overnight. Finally, the work was finished. The whole top of the all was repaired and tuck pointing was done. There's a new glass block window to the left.

Sweater progress
My Noro sweater body is finished, and the sleeves are started. I worked really hard to finish the socks by the Sunday deadline for gifting, so it grows slowly. The band has been redone. I misread the pattern and picked up too few stitches.