Excuses, excuses.............

I know you don't want to hear all of my excuses as to why it has been so long so I won't bore you.

I did want to follow up with my weekend at VKL.
I had a roommate for 2 nights.  
We met on Ravelry, and she also has her own business.
She makes beautiful buttons and she gave me a box full for a little gift.

This is my stash from VKL.  Melissa's buttons are in the middle and you can find them here.
My favorite purchase is the bracelet by a designer I saw in NYC a few years ago and fell in love with one of her hats.  I love her stuff and you can find her here.

Onto some actual knitting.
The hat pattern is finished, except for proofreading and perhaps test knitting.
I told my son he would have to model it for me, but I managed to get my model, Lena to come today.

 I couldn't just stop at making a beanie, but at the last minute I had to make a slouchy version as well.
 


 This is the ill fated vest.  I am trying again and hope that the yarn I am using this time is not being discontinued.

Name Dropping at VKL

I am back from VKL, Vogue Knitting Live.  I had a great time, what's not to love about NYC and Vogue Knitting.  I took some great classes from great teachers and took photos for proof.  I just didn't get a photo of Lily Chin, one of my favorites, who I sat with at dinner.

I took a Photographing Your Fiber class with Franklin Habit.  Sorry Franklin for the photos in this post, although I didn't take them.  Hopefully my photography will start to improve.  He said I had to read the manual for my camera.  What the heck!

                                          Franklin Habit and me

 

I took a new class from Ysolda (Teague) that she is teaching, Beyond the Top Down Raglan.  Even though I have been designing for several years and she is 30+ years younger than me, she really opened my eyes to some new ideas.  I did find 2 errors in her notes and she asked if I wanted a tech editing job!  lol

 
     Ysolda Teague and me

 

John Brinegar is an interesting guy as I am sure you can tell from his picture.  We worked on picking up stitches which I do a lot of in my patterns, but I want to know how to get other knitters over their dislike should I say? of picking up stitches.  I really enjoyed his class.

                                          John Brinegar and me

Sally Mellville gave a lecture on Why We Knit.  The least mentioned reason by knitters as the why we knit is to make something we wear.  She encouraged us to wear our knits.  Make 5 of the same thing if you love it, she does.  Ironically, I have 2 of the same sweater that I wore to VKL because I love it so much and you can see both colors in my photos.  I told her she was the only instructor who wore anything she made.  I didn't tell her 2 of my instructors were guys.  Does it count that Lily Chin wore a red dress that she knit (machine) to the cocktail party?  Apparently not for my purposes.

                                                  Sally Mellville and me

 

Back home on Monday in time to catch the Island Heights sunset........



Frustrated & Excited

Still no photos of the vest and I just found out that the yarn is being discontinued, yeah.....    lol
I wore it to 2 knit groups this week and it was very well received, it is not your everday vest.
Do I make again in another yarn?  Do I scrap the whole thing and just consider it a one of a kind piece?

Meanwhile I will be getting some new yarns from Plymouth Yarn Company who I design for, that means deadlines, somewhat self imposed.

The exciting thing is that I am going to Vogue Knitting Live today and not coming home until Monday.  I can immerse myself in yarny goodness, classes, marketplace, designers, fashion shows and lots of beautiful yarn.

Another exciting thing is that I just found the commercial that one of my photos of one of my designs was in on You Tube.  Now I can share it with everyone.

Our annual trip to Vermont

I got a lot of knitting done.  I reknit the vest that turned out so wrong last week.  Still no photos.  I was a knitting machine for 3 days.

This is the sunrise in Island Heights the morning we left for Vermont.

The traditional picture taken at Stratton. 

So cozy, knitting by the fire.

Jimmy actually wears the hat I made for him.

I wasn't happy with changing yarn colors on the one row stripes so I tried 2 rows of each color.  Now I think maybe the center design needs a couple more rows.  I do think the hem is easier to do with waste yarn, rather than picking up stitches from the cast on edge.  Will this simple hat pattern ever be completed?

Sunset back in Island Heights on Sunday.  Sorry but the sunrise & sunset were more beautiful right outside my front door.

Sunrise

I will start to tackle a new vest this weekend.  Maybe I will take a photo of the oversize vest and post it,  maybe......

I have been waking up early for some reason and catching the sunrise.  Today was even the first dusting of snow.

New Year

The last sunset of the year, not the most spectacular, but it is the last one of 2011.

I was the last one to bed (4AM, knitting of course!)  and the first one up. 

This was the first sunrise of the new year.

I finished the vest I was working on, but the finished gauge was way different than swatch.  Has this ever happened to you?  Well, yes, it happens to me too.  Back to the drawing board...........

Anyone making New Year's resolutions?  I am planning to have a blog (ha ha), hopefully instead of my website.  I also want to improve my photography.