Knitting 40 shades of green

beaded knitting

While the East Coast was digging out from two consecutive snow storms in February, as soon as the airport was flying planes, I headed west to the glorious city of Tacoma.  (To be honest since I barely left the hotel, I can't really comment on Tacoma other than the fact that they lacked snow and that was enough to make it glorious to me).  The occasion was the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat.  A great event should you be looking for some fun in February.  I had missed my class with Kathryn Alexander due to the snow situation but had a fun class with Betsy Hershburg (check out that link she makes some incredible stuff).  The class was on knitting beaded jewelry and it had the added bonus of resulting in a finished project.

After finishing this fun bracelet and a matching pair of earrings that still need findings, I ran around showing it to everyone who would listen. One of the women who shared the airport shuttle back with my teacher, Betsy, Stephanie, and a few unsuspecting non-knitting muggles, shared the sage advice: "Go home and make another as soon as possible."  About a week after I got home I stopped by my local bead shop (is that a LBS?) and picked up some tubes of beads.  I came home and tried a few gauge swatches.  I then stopped by my other local bead shop and bought more beads.  It seems I had rekindled my bead interest from high school (when I had to have my dad stop by the San Francisco bead shops when he was out that way for work).  This spring break I became a little excited about the whole process.

I then realized how much I was spending on the individual clasps at Potomac Bead and ordered 4 dozen  off the internet and I just received them in time to put them on the other 5 bracelets that I have made while waiting for them.  I will take care of the finishing and take pictures and get them posted soon.

Birthday Presents

I have never been much for "hero worship".  I am not overly impressed by movie stars and rarely remember their names.  I once saw Sandra Bullock  at the Capital CIty Brewery in Shirlington and had to ask which one she was.  I have run into various members of my favorite hockey team while out and about as well as at ticket holder events.  I have had conversations with some members from pretty good bands, and even sat at shows their families, and yet I never was really into getting the photo or the autograph.  I always just figured they were just another person.  But somehow it is different with artists, or maybe it is their work. 

One of the first artist I can remember becoming entranced with was one of my mother's clients named Genna Watson (the only thing I found in a precursory Google search was the resume of her studio assistant in 2001). [23 Nov edited to add:  I was tipped off by my mother that  I was spelling her name wrong.  It seems she is still in the area working on the faculty of the Maryland Institute College of Art and GMU.  I still wasn't able to find any photos of her work] Her work completely captivated me.  I sought it out and would hang around her studio because I was so interested in the creations and wanted to look at them.

I first became aware of Kathryn Alexander when I picked up a  back issue of Spin Off magazine.  When I saw her work again in Melanie Falick's Knitting in America, I knew I had to take a class with her and so I started hunting for classes that she taught. I have taken two, the last one about three years ago...it is time to take another.  I have had a post-it on my desk for the past three months with some teaching dates scrawled on it -- I noticed the last one was coming up this weekend at Knitter's Review retreat which is sold out...then I remembered Madrona Fiber Arts and the sign ups opened today.  I just signed up for a 4 day knitting retreat across the country in Washington State.  I guess it is a little birthday present for me, from me. 

November 15: Entrelac Surface

Kathryn is a great teacher and very fun to take a class with -- she refers to the class as her knitting scam since after so many hours, a knitter comes away with so little knitting.  Here are my swatches:

Yep, that is it for two days of knitting -- no one said that learning is fast or that entrelac is fast or knitting sport weight on threes...anyway, it was a great class.  I think the surface that I am most enamored with right now is the entrelac triangles -- I just got some linen to experiment with it as an edging for dish towels (the guild is having a bread basket and bread cloth challenge for the December auction).  I just wish I could find the linen in more colors.

Here are the other swatches:

I should wash them and tuck in the few remaining ends -- I really want to start using some of this in my knitting...we'll see.

November 14: Knitting weekend

If you are familiar with Kathryn Alexander's body of work or you are just seeing it for the first time, it quickly becomes very apparent that she is all about working with color.  But rather than study color theory and following strict rules about which colors go together, she just uses lots and lots and lots of colors, the more the better, and a good eye.  If you ask, Kathryn how many colors you would need to make a sweater she might answer "you could do it with 40 but 60 would be better".  She plays with colors and shapes and avoids rules and symmetry.  Her work falls in a category beyond knitting, to artwork.  You can just as easily display her work on a wall as wear it.  I like the way she thinks, I like the way she designs and I like her spirit.  It is due to this that I try to take every class I possibly can with her -- maybe some of the creativity will rub off on me (that and that I have the fashion sense of a three year old and I am drawn to all the pretty colors).

On Saturday she spoke to my fiber guild.  She brought examples of her work and showed many, many slides while telling humorous stories about how she became a knitter, knitting influences, and all kinds of funny and witty things.  In addition to spinning, weaving and knitting, she rides horses.  Horses are probably her first love.  Her mother was a knitter but she didn't learn until she was an adult from someone else and it all happened on account of the fact that she doesn't play penochle.  But life is strange that way. 

After the talk she gave a mini workshop on spinning and knitting energized yarns.  You needed to know how to spin to take this workshop.  This is one of the few things that has tempted me to learn spinning and if I can find a few interested individuals, I may go up to her place in New York and have her teach me how to spin.  She spins all her own yarn and never plies -- always uses the singles, although if you buy one of her kits the yarn is spun by Green Mountain Spinnery (which is a green mill) and then hand dyed by Kathryn.  She has also talked them into carrying energized singles.  She can spin all of the yarn for a sweater in a day -- that just astounds me.  I always consider spinning to be a slow endeavor.

Sunday and Monday I attended Kathryn's  workshop on Creating Surface and Color with Entrelac Shapes.  I had taken this workshop before but still felt it was worth it to take it again.  I will write about that tomorrow.

November 7: Stitches East

Here is a picture of Lily Chin and me after a long day of knitting and laughing.  It isn't in focus but that isn't my fault as I didn't take it.  If you ever have the opportunity to take a class with her she is an absolute riot.  We laughed a lot.  She is funny and sometimes a bit racy when talking about cables.  Who knew?  And you have to love the green leather outfit  -- she topped it with a warm snuggly knit jacket in purples and blues. 

The class was on reversible cables and has given me some ideas and helped me understand cables a little better that I could make something with out the aid of a pattern.  I am thinking there may be some Brioche reversible cables in my future...

I also took a class on necklines with Judy Pasqual.  I learned a couple of good tricks that I will be able to incorporate in my knitting.  I am not sure she got to cover all she had planned since there were several knitters in the class who were new to short rows and so they took more time to learn -- we had a homework swatch that we never used.

I also did a bit of purchasing at the market since it was my birthday weekend and all but you will have to wait for the full report until I get a chance to take a few photos.