Learning New Tricks

May is almost over, and summer is just around the corner. For some knitters, it is time to store the needles until fall and cooler weather. But I can't; I have to be knitting on something.

Socks are great for summer knitting. They are light, knit up fairly fast, and new lessons can be learned from every pair, if one chooses to move away from the standard heels and toes. With all this in mind, I spent my Mother's Day weekend with my friend Mary, enjoying classes with Lucy Neatby! Now I don't get a chance to take lessons from the masters very often. As a matter of fact, I've Never taken a class with any of the big names of knitting so this was truly a treat!

Saturday's class was on multi-directional knitting. We learned how to attach a garter stitch edging, as you might do with a neck band or i-cord trim. One of the really neat things that Lucy teaches is the use of waste yarn. I mean she uses it a lot! One of the new uses for waste yarn that I learned is in the edge stitches where you would want to come back in later and attach stitches. The technique is to lay a piece of waste yarn on top of your working yarn before you knit the first stitch of the row. If you do this all the way up the side of your piece, it will give you the ability to see those stitches that you want to later pick up to knit in a parallel direction. Such a simple idea that can save time in the long run. I wish I had known to do this when I was adding all those different sides of my Moderne Log Cabin Blanket!

This definitely takes the guess work out of how many and where those picked up stitches should be.

Then we knitted up the neatest group of equilateral triangles. (see bottom picture). These were so cute and so easy to do. Lucy has several patterns where she uses these triangles to make garmets. Her patterns can be found at http://www.tradewindknits.com/

The second day, which was Mother's Day, we focused on socks. Lucy taught the Channel Islands Cast On. I had never tried it, but it makes a very pretty picot-like edge on your sock. This CO is found in Lucy's book Cool Socks Warm Feet on page 76. My not so great attempt is on the top of my class sock. Definitely has potential, but I need a lot of practice! Then, I tried the garter stitch heel. OMG! It will be so much easier than the conventional heel, if I can get it where it doesn't have a gillion holes in it! (See the holes!) Again, practice, practice, practice.

Of course, one of the really nice things about taking a class is meeting other knitters. I met several other Ravelers, one who was already in my friends list and a couple whom I have since added. It was so nice to put faces to those web pages. I'm hoping to have some lasting knitting friendships to develop from this weekend.

Finally, if you haven't check out Lucy Neatby, you should. Her DVD's are awesome teaching tools. She actually uses them for her classes. The segments are all closeups of her hands, very clear to see. And she is just an awesome teacher!

My whole weekend, from not being home for Mother's Day to re-thinking some of my knitting techniques, can probably be summed up with the old cliche "Think Outside the Box!"

...till next time,

b