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29 November 2010

WOOLLY WEEKEND



Last weekend (19th/20thNov) was a good woolly weekend - on Friday evening a new experience - I'd been invited to a Yarn Party held by one of the knitters in the 'Stitch in Bishop's Stortford' knit group. I was one of the first to arrive - well I was very excited by it all - I'd been saving my pennies and was really looking forward to a night out with knitters and loads of wool. I wasn't disappointed - when I arrived there was yarn everywhere - in soft, colourful, squishy piles. A heap of knitted & crocheted samples on the table, a bag of zauerballs here, a basket of Natural Dye Studio there .....sigh

The lady running it all was Sophie of Twist Yarns - she entertained us (it wasn't very difficult) with talk of yarn and then showed us all how to do Tunisian (afghan) crochet and then let us loose on the bags......sigh

I bought 3 zauerballs and a crazy zauerball, a NDS precious and angel, and a skein of Louisa Harding Grace.



The photo below is what one of the zauerballs and the crazy zaurball look like now ;-) nearly finished - one row left plus blocking - look for the finished version soon on Ravelry. it's called seraphina and is a free pattern by grumperina - there are a few hiccoughs in the pattern but once you get the hang of it - it's really straight forward.



Then Saturday

I went to a workshop at the Middle Essex Guild of weavers, spinners and dyers. The speaker was Tricia Holman talking on the Elizabeth Zimmerman way of knitting - Tricia is Elizabeth Zimmerman's niece so is well qualified to talk on the subject, and indeed was extremely informative and very approachable. She talked about (in hushed voice) cutting your knitting, knitting with different coloured yarns in each hand, and a host of other techniques aimed at speeding things up and making them less complicated - very inspiring.

Then we had a little go at stabilising the edges and then cutting a piece - I'm really up for learning more of this - hopefully a workshop or two next year - I've always wanted to knit with more than one colour at a time, it's so easy in crochet, but I get in a complete pickle with knitting - I have one project that's been hibernating for over 20 years because it became such a nightmare.

If only all weekends could be this much fun.

2 comments:

bunnits said...

What a fun time! I love getting together with fiber friends. I just don't get to do it often enough these days.

~ Phyllis ~ said...

Your shawl is beautiful. How interesting that you heard Elizabeth Zimmerman's niece speak. Would loved to have been there.