Monday, February 07, 2011

What a Great Weekend: New Knitting Friends

I had a terrific time at the DKC Winter Workshops this past weekend. I met some great new knitters and friends - and caught up with some old friends, too.

There's Debbie, who apparently used to crochet in a past life. I teach a class called Crochet For Knitters. It's about teaching knitters how a crochet hook can make their lives better - for picking up stitches, for quick seams, for decorative edgings, for lie-flat edgings, for lengthening sleeves that were inadvertently knitted too short (yes, I'm looking at you, M.). I don't fuss about style, and we don't worry about reading the patterns, it's sort of the crafter's equivalent of a conversational Italian course - just enough to be able to find your way around, but not so much that you're worrying about correct verb forms. Knitters are often clumsy at first with a crochet hook - god knows I was - but Debbie was some sort of savant. Her friends and I just watched her swoop the hook ever-so-elegantly, like she'd done it before.

I met a real live natural Norwegian Purler - that is, someone who was taught that way and didn't know there was any other way. Her name is Sue, and she learnt to knit in Denmark. I think I startled her when I realized how she was knitting and rushed over to watch. I had to reassure her that what she was doing was actually very cool. She said that she had noticed that no-one else did it the same way in North America. I told her that she should be proud of her method, and should offer to teach it to anyone who remarks upon her knitting. So - look out for a lovely lady called Sue who purls Norwegian style - she may well teach you!

And there's Liz who took my "Lace 102" class so she could tackle a Shetland lace pattern from Heirloom Knitting. Specifically, a multi-pattern, multi-bordered cob-web weight Shetland lace shawl that can be worked as either a triangle or square. The triangle requires 6 x 25gm of 1 ply lace weight. 25gm of this yarn has 350m of yarn. I got out my calculator (since being good at math is not nearly the same thing as being good at arithmetic), and worked it out: that's 2100m of yarn. Cobweight weight yarn. FOR THE HALF SIZE VERSION.

The full size version takes twice that.

Liz has the right attitude - she's set herself a 5 year goal. I plan to take her out for a drink when it's done.

5 comments:

cari said...

Next time I get grief for differentiating between math and arithmetic, I'm referring to this blog entry. Kate, you rock!

Liz said...

Thanks for an amazing class, Kate!

Catherine said...

That lace shawl is stunning, it puts the little shawl I made here ( http://chopkins2011.blogspot.com/2011/01/family-treasures.html ) in its place. I agree that srochet hooks are very handy for knitters - I tend to drop quite a few stitches!

Anonymous said...

What? Only one drink! Poor Liz! If I ever get past the spider web border on my little scarf there's gonna be a BIG party!

KarenJ said...

What? Only one drink! Poor Liz! If I ever get past the spider web border on my little scarf there's gonna be a BIG party!