It's been a great couple of weeks to be a knitter.
Aside from the crisp change of weather that has blown through, making wool in Houston seem appealing, we've also had some great instructors come through town, and they've left us INSPIRED!
First up was Cookie A, of Monkey fame, as part of a Knit At Night Guild sponsored workshop. Cookie had fabulous information on getting started designing your own socks, and as soon as I had picked out a stitch pattern (because for the most part, it is that simple), I got going.
I had picked out one of our newer sock yarns to work with, and I couldn't have been happier. O-Wool Classic 2-Ply is a soft yet sturdy organic yarn with excellent stitch definition. At first I had been afraid that the plies would interfere with the stitch pattern, but all you see is a gorgeous piece of fabric once it's knitted up.
I had a skein of the Ella Rae Lace Merino that I blogged about last time set aside to make a pair of socks as a Christmas gift that was begging to be made into Pomatomus, and let me say this - if these socks were for anyone other than my mother, I'd have a hard time parting with them. This is the Rainbows colorway, and each stitch is like a joyous burst of color. If you're a sock knitter, I highly, highly, highly encourage you to try out this yarn for socks. And to dispell any lingering doubts, let me add that I am halfway through the first sock of the pair and I feel very confident that I'm going to have yarn left over from this skein.
If you're interested in some of Cookie's other patterns, come by the shop. Our stock is a little low now, but we're expecting more in any day.
And yesterday we had Brandon Mably at the store for a color workshop. Before I talk about the workshop, I want to say how hard it its to describe Brandon. Wendy and I were tossing around words like: "irrepressable," "exuberant," "incorrigible" (but in a good way!), "zany," and just a little bit "naughty" (he nicknamed one student Temptress, and I was dubbed Trouble), but that still doesn't quite describe Brandon. But on to the workshop.
First I need to say - WOW.
Everyone was instructed to bring about twenty partial skeins of yarn for the workshop, and Y2E also provided a big pile of yarn for community use. We were then told to select a yarn, cut off a length of about a yard or so, and then find another color that just demanded to sit next to it. After we had paired two colors, we had to find a third color that wanted to sit next to color two, regardless of its relation to color one, and so on. We made two balls of yarn, one in "light" colors and one in "dark" colors (and I say "light" and "dark," but it's relative to the knitter), and then he got us started knitting one of Kaffe Fassett's most popular patterns, Persian Poppies, designating one skein as the background color and one as the pattern color.
It is truly amazing to see how the colors combine as you knit up the pattern. Sometimes you encounter a happy surprise, like the way a color that you thought was truly horrible not only blends in perfectly with the colors around it but actually enhances the rest of the piece. And sometimes you see something that you might call atrocious but Brandon calls a design element, and you either learn to deal with it, or learn to never make that mistake again.
As I write this, I realize that it all sounds very simple. But for a good portion of the class, I floundered. Brandon doesn't believe in traditional color theory, and, as an art student, I found myself struggling to let go of notions of hue and value, complementary colors, and the color wheel. But at some point during the last two hours of class, I forced myself to let go, and honestly, that's when the magic happened.
At the end of class, everyone tacks up their swatches, and Brandon does a little critique. And while everyone was given the same directive, and everyone used yarns from the same pile, not one of the swatches ever looks the same. You can see personalities emerge from the fabric, and Brandon can make you see wonderful things (even within your own swatch) that you didn't even realize were there. But just look at the photos if you have any doubts. Aside from the fact that the results will surprise even yourself, it's truly amazing to see what the other students in the class do when given the same directive. Again, it sounds like a simple premise for a class, but the knowledge you take away is staggering.
Between our cameras and the cameras of other students, we have an abundance of photos, and it would be impossible for me to post them all here. I've created a flickr account, and I'll be posting the excess photos there, soon.
But any way you look at it, right now is a great time to be knitting! Come by the shop and let us inspire you.
More photos are on their way soon!




The second trunk show that we have in the shop is from Prism. 












