Pure Michigan

After a long absence, I've carved out a little time to share some of my most recent work and travel. In early August, I visited my family in Michigan and taught a few workshops at Country Needleworks, my original hometown local yarn store.

I'm developing a new class that I'll be teaching at several shops in the Baltimore/DC area this fall (Woolworks, Fibre Space, and the Yarn Spot), and I taught a Test Lab version at Country Needleworks because the knitters there are skilled, adventurous, and honest with their feedback. What I learned from teaching the prototype class was invaluable for future iterations.

Here's a photo of the prototype class project. The class includes instructions to do all the stitches in the prototype and improvise a circular shawl.

Here are two of my students, my friend Ruth (in green-on-green Monomania) and her daughter, Jenna. Note the eyelet pattern in Jenna's shawl. They're both using Neighborhood Fiber Co. yarn, which Country Needleworks carries (exclusive Michigan distributor!).

The students in these two classes were TROOPERS. Starting a circular shawl is not easy.

I also taught Color Theory, for which I found plenty of example skeins of fingering-weight yarn in the shop:

I found Stonehedge Fiber Mill Crazy too, so some of that came home with me. It's the yarn I used for Magnificent Oyster, and I'm planning to design a cardigan and crochet a ripple afghan with it, too. Here's Ruth with her selected skeins of Crazy and me with my fingering-weight example yarns plus three skeins of Crazy I purchased:

I sat in on Ruth's drop-in summer Monomania workshop. EVERYONE turned out in their finished or in-progress Monomanias. Solid Monomanias, two-color Monomanias, bright Monomanias, subtle Monomanias. I'm wearing Ruth's natural white "ghost" Monomania (to quote Ruth: "Seems so wrong, but feels so right") with the sleeves from her two-color green-on-green Monomania:

Several lovely knitters, including Joan, Kathy, and Ruth (of course), wore Weaverknits designs to the workshops. Joan is wearing Iodine and Kathy is wearing The Whiteness of the Whale. I'm wearing my Weathered Pullover.

So what's up next? Several new designs coming out in September, including a sweater for the Neighborhood Fiber Co. Outerloop sweater club, workshops at Nina and String Theory in Chicago, and lots of work at my new server job at Joe Squared, just a mile and half from my house.

After all that, I need a nap.