On June 5th I flew into Columbus, Ohio to attend The National Needlearts Association trade show. I hadn't displayed in a booth since 2002 so I was feeling a little rusty. Since this is strictly a wholesale show, I was there to open new accounts for my knitting patterns. Fortunately, my friend
Marilyn King offered to come along from the Denver area to help out. She efficiently got me organized (you'd think I'd never done this before as disorganized as I was!) and we quickly got our display up so we could go out for dinner and relax.
My booth: Left, center, and right
The next night we went to dinner at a nice German restaurant in Columbus with friends and colleagues:
JoLene Treace and Marilyn King, both designers and friends!
Denise,
Arnhild Hillesland, and Linda from Ames, Iowa. I taught on a trip hosted by Arnhild to Sweden and Norway several years ago. Too much fun! She carries my favorite Norwegian yarn: Rauma (Strikkegarn and Finullgarn to be specific).
Well, schmoozing is definitely an integral part of TNNA and I did my best! My four new patterns were well received and I am working hard to get them into booklet form to print and distribute by September 1.
I met Julia Grunau, the creative mind behind
Patternfish—a new website just for downloading patterns. It is a month old now and already there are over 950 patterns there. I am thrilled that Julia asked me to participate, so I am also working on pattern layout for that venue. It's a lovely site and very navigable. Check it out!
After TNNA I taught for 3 days at
Knitters Connection, also in Columbus, OH. This was the event's second year and it was wonderful! I met the
Ravelry gang and
Clara Parkes (and bought her new book, doncha know:
The Knitters Book of Yarn).
At the obligatory Knitters Connection teachers' meeting,
Cat Bordhi was so excited to show us all a new technique she worked out for making ssk look nicer. You know how one side of your sock gusset can look zig-zaggy? Well now, with her method, the ssk line is as straight and clean looking as the K2tog side. This photo, below, shows the difference on a sock heel gusset. I can't wait for her to put up a new video on YouTube to demonstrate it! How lucky we in the knitting community are, for teachers like her who want to share knowledge rather than keep it proprietary.
My sock heel gusset, with normal ssk (inconsistent size and tension of decreases) below and Cat's neat and tidy ssk above. Is that awesome or what? OK... so it's subtle in this photo, but I am very psyched about this!
I am looking forward to the remaining workshops I have planned this year. You can always check out my schedule on this blog—I update it monthly, believe it or not! I'll be in Colorado and Stitches Midwest and Stitches East*, three knitting events in Vermont (YAY!), Pennsylvania, Virginia, Santa Fe, Michigan, Montreal, Chicago, northern California, and Ohio will finish up my year. What a great year it has been so far!
* I am offering the Danish Skrå-trøje again at
Stitches East this November and want to share photos I received from Dianna Smith who took the class 2 years ago. After completing the little sweater in class, she designed her own full-sized Skrå-trøje. What a fabulous job she did!
I am feeling more and more like a Vermonter, which is a good thing. It just gets harder and harder to leave to travel.
Mmmm.... future currant jelly! Enjoy your summer, everyone!
And here is a detail shot
In addition to finishing that, I am still tweaking the Aran Winter Set that I posted about oh, so long ago. I am still not sure if I will include the hat, but I am trying to make it work. This is one of those long-term projects--ripping more than knitting. Finally I got tired of ripping, got the cable I wanted partway through the brim, and decided to cut instead of starting over. I picked up half a stitch all along the row with my stitch holder to stabilize the knitting.
Here is where I started to cut. I only clipped one piece of yarn and gently pulled that row out, stitch by stitch, putting the stitches on my double pointed needle. Note that the cable above is tighter and more compact, being cabled every 10 rows. The cable below, which I had started with, was cabled every 14 rows--too lazy and long for me! The Stockinette stitch area will be a facing that gives weight to the cabled brim. And maybe you can see where I slipped a stitch near the upper cable for awhile, hoping that would help in turning the facing. I decided it didn't help, actually looking sloppy, and later dropped the stitch down and picked it back up utilizing every row of yarn, instead of the "every other row" that a slipped stitch gets. Mmm...better.
Taa-daa! Now I have live stitches to work the Three Needle Bind-off with the other end, making the circular brim. The rest of the hat will be picked up around the edge of the brim, hopefully sooner rather than later...
Designing for me is hard work. I try a bunch of different things, most of which don't work. I do A LOT of swatching. I envy the designers that can whip out 5 or 6 designs per month. I spend a minimum of 2 months, and usually way more than that, on one project. I am very slow--but it's not a race. I have learned that no piece of knitting is a total disaster--it can always be salvaged in some way. Knowing how to cut my knitting freed me up in many ways. And, having some experience in sewing as a teenager has given me some idea as to how garments are put together. Later! 
There is a lot of sewing in this class and I brought my little Featherweight sewing machine along. (You can see it on the back table.) The knitting part is fairly straight-forward. The hand embroidery and the assembly of the sweater are what take so long.
I taught the Norwegian Setesdal Lusekofte for three days. Everyone worked so hard and I am so proud of my class and the sweet sweaters everyone made. Lambchops was especially pleased with her new sweater!
It was a wonderful experience, being with a smaller group of students and staying with them for 3 days. I really prefer that so I can get to know the knitters. I am hoping I can go back to Asilomar next year to teach. It will be held September 11-15.
