2008 knit out and crochet

[2eclipse]

this was just awesome.
i met so many great people,just from standing in line or sitting next to people; a woman who learned to knit from her mom, 4 girls who started a fiber club at their university, a woman who owns an angora goat and spins her own yarn, the mother of two yarn store workers who teaches crochet professionally... people came from all over the country. california, ohio, florida, wisconsin, colorado.....it was great.
a lot of people asked me questions about sock knitting and i was able to pass on some helpful tips i've picked up and show them that it's really not that hard to do a pattern repeat. i got to see my friends heather and corrin and heather's baby tasha. corrin and i took advantage of the free crochet lessons and i feel SO accomplished. i learned single crochet, double crochet, half-double crochet, ribbing and how to make a shell....also got a demo of what trible crochet looks like. it was too cool. i don't think i'll ever convert over to crochet in preference of knitting, but there are some cute patterns that are crochet only that i've been wanting to make and now i can!
saturday was very crowded and there were a lot of lines to see the various booths. sunday was a lot more laid back and there were hardly any lines. some of the booths were giving away free stuff and others were demo-ing new equipment that's coming out. clover makes some really neat needle-felting tools that i'm definitely going to have to invest in. i got two sets of free LED knitting needles and 3 sets of big chunky wooden ones, a bunch of gauge/needle measures and free patterns and 5 skeins of free yarn (although some of it us stuff i will trade/sell as soon as possible). they gave away a lot more stuff on sunday than saturday. good thing to remember for the future.

also i spotted BUBBO from ravelry!! we chit chatted a bit and i believe we will be having coffee like real people in the near future. it's neat that she lives near me.

there were competitions for the fastest knitter/crocheter, talks and demos by fiber designers, a fashion show, and classes. i wish i had taken more advantage of the classes. i also wish there had been more representation of A) yarns not made of acrylic and B) more LYS's. there were only two present from what i saw.
all the acrylic at the knit out made me hunger for quality yarn and i wound up stopping at the yarnery on sunday before i headed down to the mall of gamorrah. i picked up two skeins of nature spun worsted in black and purple to make a hat for ross that i've been promising him forever, and two skeins of lovely fabulous fleece artist merino 3/6. oh so smooshy! i will post pictures when i have had a chance to take some.
also i finished the first of my nutkin socks!
i wound up having to do the wrap-n-turn short rows for the heel and the toe because the short rows as written created holes that made me unhappy. the socks are a TAD small and i think that if i were to make these again i might increase a needle size, but they do fit and i LOVE the way the toe looks on these socks. i had been fantasizing about what doing the toe this way would look like for a while. i think you could probably kitchner the bind off instead of doing the 3 needle bind off, but i kinda like the ridge that is created above the toes. good stuff.

 



x-posted to 20sknitters

also had a really great time playing board games with shawn and thistle saturday night and hanging out and watching lost and eating yummy indian food with ross sunday evening.

Comments

[frog-lady.livejournal.com]

Your knit-out sounds way better than the Philly one was the year I went.

I just saw your yarn pics on Ravelry--I love those colors.

Huh. Somehow, it failed to occur to me that the Nutkins are top-down. I love my toe-up socks....

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

the knit out was very cool. there were SO many people.
what was the one in philly like?

[frog-lady.livejournal.com]

I went a few years ago, so it might be better now, but it was highly unorganized, and it felt more crowded than pleasantly populated. I think there were some lessons going on, but the room with most of that stuff was one big-but-not-big-enough room with a bunch of round tables in it, and it was too loud for me to want to stay long. Some of us hung out for a while in the hallway, by the two or three booths that were out there, and then we left.

Personally, even though it's substantially farther away, I'd rather just go to MDSW. (I realize that there may not be any super-huge fiber festivals near you, but the Vermont Sheep & Wool was pretty great, too, and I'm sure Minnesota has something on that scale. Or maybe not, but it seems likely.)

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

there is a fiber festival on mother's day, but i have no idea how big it is.
there is also something called the yarn over held by the minnesota knitter's guild in april that has lots of classes.
i've only lived in minnesota a couple of years, so i haven't really gotten a chance to explore all the opportunities around here yet.
there is a really big sheep festival in wisconsin too, but i'm not sure when or how far away it is.
one of these years i'm going to have to arrange to be in northern va when MDSW comes around.

[frog-lady.livejournal.com]

one of these years i'm going to have to arrange to be in northern va when MDSW comes around.

Or, just maybe, in Maryland? ;) I am not personally at a point where I can see myself travelling hundreds of miles (more than 4h by car) for a fiber festival, but camping at MDSW is fun, and I know there are people who come from farther than Minnesota. We met some Alaskans last year, although they did have other plans for their sojourns in the lower 48.

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

:)
oh i would be going to maryland, alright.
but i have the free place to stay in virginia.

[frog-lady.livejournal.com]

Right, right. :)

I've become a very big proponent of camping 10 minutes from the fairgrounds, but I can understand wanting to stay somewhere with actual hot water, instead of slightly-warmer-than-freezing showers, for example.

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

honestly, i would probably go for the camping route if i lived close by.
but i see my friends and family around there so little that when i am, i need to be near them.

[frog-lady.livejournal.com]

Oh, look! There's a picture now! It's hard to see the stitch pattern through the colors, but I like the striping.

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

unfortunately, this picture is a little blurry...and i couldn't get the light quite right...so the orange looks a little pinkier than it is - really it's kind of a burn orange color...much more like the other picture on my ravelry project, or the stash color for this yarn. the sock also comes up well past my ankle...and i'm not sure you get a good idea of that in this pic.
i like toe-up socks too. i think it would be very easy to adapt this pattern for toe uppedness. you wouldn't get the ridge over the toes, but that's no big deal. you might have to modify the top of the cuff a bit too..but i think it's do-able.

[keisolo.livejournal.com]

Congrats on learning to crochet, and I'm glad you had what sounds like tons of fun.

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

it was fun. the bummer is that even though i can do some fun crochet tricks...i can't really read a pattern. i guess with help i could. that's probably the simple part, right? but i'm so involved with my knitting and there just aren't that many things i WANT to crochet just now. my friend corrin, who learned with me, has taken off with it like nobody's business.

[keisolo.livejournal.com]

If you ever actually need help that could come from this angle, completely willing.

Although, sort of hoping the same applies from you whenever I get around to finishing teaching myself how to knit. I have a real thing about neat socks. Knitting will allow me to make myself neat socks. That's actually the primary (if scarily selfish) reason for me wanting to learn at the moment.

Weird thing, though, me and socks. Not something I figured out until the past few years.

Anyway, I digress. Exiting ramble mode now.

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

i would absolutely be HONORED to teach you to knit. anytime. but some things are difficult over the internet/phone. you should just move up here. :)
and SOCKS are my favorite! best thing ever. they are so quick and versatile.
i will let you know if i get jonesing for crochet. honestly i'm interested....i'm just so much MORE interested in knitting and spinning at the moment....that and i haven't really found a pattern i want to crochet yet.

[keisolo.livejournal.com]

So very tempting.

And maybe more feasible sometime in the future, depending on how a particular bombshell dropped on my head last night gets worked out. *sighs*

Really really want to learn socks. At least then I could make sure they fit.

Wasn't there a Cthulu pattern you'd wanted to crochet? Or something squidlike? The exact details escape me at the moment.

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

socks are awesome.
i haven't found a crocheted cthulhu pattern that wasn't too cutesy for me...but there probably has been SOMETHING and i'm just nor remembering either.

Hm...

[keisolo.livejournal.com]

I think I have it bookmarked somewhere. As soon as the current chaos dies down a bit (I'm doing most of her packing) I'll see if I can find it.