WolfWeave

We just got back from taking my middle son to college–Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH–and I am totally exhausted. The house is emptier, quieter without Noah; his loss will definitely be felt. On the other hand, Ben stands ready to fill the breach, at least as far as arguing is concerned.

has come and gone. I overloaded on the courses, which was a mistake, as usual (TRY to remember this for next year!) and spent WAY too much in the marketplace, as the yarn choices were utterly irresistible.

The keynote address was given by Jane Sowerby on her upcoming book, Victorian Lace TODAY (available in November from XRX Publishing), and she was utterly enchanting. A shy and sort of proper British gentlewoman, whom they had coaxed into the spotlight when they found that she had discovered and translated these lace patterns from the early 1800s (1837 onwards) and knit them into the most amazing collection of scarves and shawls, many in her own hand-spun yarns. Well, XRX saw an opportunity to update these Victorian shawls with a contemporary feel and the bookplates that we saw certainly accomplished this. And Ms. Sowerby saw her opportunity to highlight the research she has done into the women who first wrote down these lace patterns and sold them (often in competing tiny books–she had one there that she let me see). Anyway, I found her to be fascinating, open, sharing and entirely unspoiled by the vagaries of modern materialism. Her concerns were solely those of a spinner and knitter–later in the show, I ran into her at one booth as I was contemplating buying a skein of laceweight alpaca for a shawl. She showed me how it was entirely unsuitable, pulling out the guard hairs that had been spun into it and declaring it altogether too scratchy for a shawl, although perhaps passable for a pair of socks. She was just charming. Because of her opening address, I found my shopping focused on a search for laceweight yarns with which I intended (the best of intentions surely) to knit all sorts of lovely Victorian shawls)!! Well, I bought some yarns of various weights and we shall see what we end up knitting. One lace yarn I splurged on was this luscious mohair from Ellen’s 1/2 Pint Farm:

My classes were quite interesting, with the best towards the end of the show. I had a fabulous scarf class with the incredibly entertaining Maggie Jackson and would not hesitate to take more classes from her, though I’m not sure I want to take her trip to Spain and visit the cave she now lives in with her new beau. Here is my very unfinished bit of a scarf, with it’s Irish linen, novelty yarns, and bits of leather and feathers thrown in:

That afternoon (the last class, when I should have been most tired), I was kept on my toes by Maureen Mason-Jamieson and learned 6 different techniques for utilizing short rows. Earlier I had taken a class with Candace Eisner Strick on “Short Rows ‘Round the Circle’,” which also taught me something else about short rows but which resulted in a circle with limited uses (top of a hat, side of a bag). Short row samples (Candace on the left and Maureen on the right):

Mostly I spent the class admiring the color gradations of the capelet Candace was wearing and jumped at the chance to see her kits during my next visit to the market. They are very exact and the colors are very beautiful but, luckily, at the last moment, I realized that what looks good on Candace would probably look terrible on me; and that I generally don’t wear wool indoors, and her kits are all wool.

All day Saturday I took 2 classes with Debbie New, whom I had been most anxious to meet–she is the original goddess of free-form crochet and knitting and this was the first time she had ventured to Chicago to teach. Unfortunately I was sort of disappointed in her classes. She was a good teacher and a kind and sharing person but she basically left us alone to follow our own paths after some basic instruction. She seemed tired (and I know I was) and did not spend the time imparting to us words of wisdom, as I had expected her to do. The Cellular Automaton class was somewhat more interesting, as it was more structured and required greater participation on her part. I loved meeting her and still greatly admire her but wish I could have gotten to know her better, as one feels one knows Prudence Mapstone after a day with her.

The only other class I took was with Sally Melville who was wonderful. We did the Stripes section from her latest book on Color and she was full of tips on how to use horizontal stripes in many ways so that they emphasize your best features instead of making you look wide. We practiced quite a few different stripes. I only wish the class could have been longer. Sally had many of the garments from the book and so many of them looked different in person. She spent time trying to expain them to us also but there just wasn’t time to absorb all the information she had to share.

On the top is my sample from Debbie New’s Freeform Knitting class and on the bottom is my attempt to keep up with all the stripe ideas that Sally Melville overwhelmed us with (luckily I have the book!):

So, you see, I hit quite a few of the famous teachers but still there were so many other wonderful classes I wish I could have taken. It is so hard to decide. On top of this there was a dinner with a professional fashion show of XRX garments that was incredible and another student banquet with a student fashion show that was even more incredible. Nearly every lunch hour was spent trying to soak up and make sense of the offerings of the 170 vendors in the marketplace. That was overwheming. I found that many of the vendors were very helpful in steering me away from patterns or kits that would not look good on me (even if they were ones I had been lusting after for years) and towards ones that would better flatter my figure. Aside from the laceweight yarns for shawls, I scored a lime and purple skein of Socks That Rock yarn, some mohair boucle for a fall/winter jacket (which I’d better get started on!–see post above), and some beautiful cotton/tencel from Just Our Yarn for a top or shrug of some sort:

I spent a lot of time at Habu, filling in the holes in my collection (does anyone ever knit with these beautiful threads?) and where Takako helped me pick out a kit (#85) for a loose paper moire and silk boucle long jacket.

One booth had some closeout bargains: Italian 60% cashmere/40% merino yarn labeled “Newton Country Yarns” (marked at $95/lb with a weight of 2000 yd/lb, divided into approximately quarter pound skeins priced at $7 each the first day). Although obviously originally meant as machine knitting yarns, I couldn’t pass those up and neither could most everyone else because the second day of the market, when the price on these fell to $6, there was almost nothing left in the booth. I also bought a few skeins of a rayon boucle that was mostly black with multi-colored boucle bits; these were also $7 each:

Another purchase I made was one of the unusual handblown glass shawl pins from Moving Mud in a shimmery blue/brown (now all I have to do is knit the shawl for it!). Oh yes, almost forgot…I also managed to pick up one of Anne & Don Vickery’s (Feltcraft) small felting (formerly sewing) machines and a thin felt batt to get me started. Can’t wait to try it! At least I saved the shipping cost.

I saw some old friends at the market (Deborah Doyle was there with her elegant crochet hooks and knitting needles. Linda Diak from Grafton Fibers had a booth full of roving, Tom’s crochet hooks, and her incredible needlefelted mermaid). I spent treasured time with old friends in between classes, surprisingly ran into some of my beading buddies, and I even made new friends too. The entire show was way too much fun and I can’t wait to sign up for next year’s (NOT SO MANY CLASSES NEXT TIME!!).