Knit-In Knitting

Well, this past Saturday was the annual Madison Knitter's Guild (MKG), Knit-In at the Bishop O'Connor Center. The knit-in is made up of four primary aspects: knitter's, classes, the marketplace and a well-known knitterly speaker or group.

My "Strickly Sock"

I was lucky enough to get in Candace Eisner Strick's "Strick-ly Socks" class. The class was great. She taught us how to make a sock with her new revolutionary and yet simple, sock technique. I loved it!! The hardest part was learning the Channel Island cast-on she taught us. She was a nice instructor with a quirky sense of humor that made the time fly by. I would highly recommend that and her book if you're looking for a great new sock method.

Note: I especially like this sock method, because I can do the toes and turn a heel without using double-pointed needles. I'm a big fan of the 9" circulars and I can the whole with those and pair of 16" circulars.

The marketplace was also nice. I kept my purchases to two sets of buttons. Very nice. You can never have too many buttons. In fact, I never have buttons when I actually need them, and then I end up buying cheap ones I don't like.

I also picked up the "Strick-ly Socks" book, a size one  9" Hiya-Hiya circulars in nickel!!! Yeah, I think I have them all now.  And....drumroll for the yarn....only 1 skein of an autumn-y red, orange, yellow and brown fingering weight sock yarn, for the new socks of course, and 900 yards of a similar color in dk weight for the cover shirt of the new Knitscene magazine. (That yarn was a great deal). Both were from an independent dyer, whose color's were fantastic.

It was hard limiting the yarn purchases to just two, but if I'm trying to bust the stash, concessions have to be made.

1245 Yds. What a steal!!

Finally, the founders and employees of Ravelry attended as the guest speakers. Wow, what a story. They were sort of quirky and informal in their story telling and history, but the overall staple of knitting networking that they created is amazing. It's hard to believe that Ravelry is only four years old and has millions of members worldwide. What a phenomenon!!! I was inspired by what the end result was and only wish I had the sort of technical mastery Casey possesses.

Overall, it was a nice day. Oh, Knitpicks also provided complimentary buttons!!! Thanks. I love knitting freebies.

Intil I write again....