Friday, November 9, 2012

Of knitting, learning and finding a friend

The knitting conference was interesting, for the most part everyone was respectful of others abilities, of course there had to be a few sour grapes, luckily I only ran into a few of them.  The better teachers kept these knitters in line, held them back and made them wait until everyone had arrived at the end of that step so everyone could begin the new row/technique at the same time.  And really, if you think about it, it does make it easier for the teacher to keep all of the student attempting the same thing together.  No having to muck about to decide where student is, and just what you have done to get things that fouled up.

It really surprised me how exhausting knitting can be!  After a really hard and tricky class, my entire body was worn out, to say nothing of the brain cells.  A lot of it's due, I'm sure to being tensed up for 3 hours, trying hard to winkle out how to do what they are attempting to teach us.  Compounding that was temperature of the class rooms.  While I know I need a higher temperature to function, yes I am a reptile!, everyone was bundled up.  At one point I had on a undershirt, a long sleeved t-shirt, a thin sweater and a thermal top, with a scarf wound around my neck, and my coat over my legs.  I was wishing that I had of brought some of my heavier hoodies and sweaters.

Over the course of 4 days I took 9 classes.  Some of which weren't to hard, it was just learning the basics and then practice practice practice.  Carnegie Hall here I come!  What?? Grandmother always told me no one got to Carnegie without practice!

Every class came with some sort of hand outs.  Some will be carefully placed into sleeves and placed in my knitting binder, others? Yeah, they wont be saved.


What were the coolest thing(s) I learned?  Hmmm.....How about knitting two socks, at the same time, on the same needles, one within the other?  They have been referred to "War and Peace" socks, due to Tolstoy mentioning them.  That was without a doubt AMAZING!  I'm going to be buying some sock yarn and give it a go!  After the whole ribbing on the top half, its not that tricky either, weirdly enough.

Knitting plaid.  Yeah, that is going to take some pre-planning to get it to work our right, but I think that this is something doable.  The trick is, at least I think so, is to decide what colors go in what order, and then going for it.  My learning piece is rather small, but its starting to look like my favorite color, plaid!


Wire knitting.  That was lots of fun, hard on the fingers tugging, tugging, tugging on something that isnt exactly finger friendly.  I can see many christmas gifts using this technique. This isnt what I was supposed to produce, but I liked the bangle idea better.



Putting zips into sweaters.  Second son wants a sweater from me, with a zip naturally, something that I didnt know how to do before this class, and quite honestly was afraid of.  But after a brief explanation, BOOM! it all makes perfect sense.


I sat next to loads if different ladies, enjoyed some very interesting chats, which is nice as knitting is more or less a solitary activity.  One lady from Canada is the sweetest person you could ever think to meet.  We had quite a lot in common, she wanted to exchange email addys, but before we did, I came out to her.  I'm tired of hiding who I am, and if a new friendship is in the making, I want it to be on a truthful footing.  She was very accepting of me, I hope to find a way to meet up with her in person again.  She is a treasure indeed. 






5 comments:

  1. Hi Biki,
    Glad you had some fun. Making a new friend in a new place is always important, so I hope it works out. Was it scary coming out in "public"?

    My wife does a lot knitting but has slowed up on it recently.

    R

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  2. That is totally cool you made a new friend while you were at your knitting classes. I'm glad you had fun!

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  3. All kinds of good happening! Learning new, neat knitting techniques (and the pics of them are very cool!), and making a new friend, too. Even if the classrooms were cold, it can't get much better than that. So glad you had such a good time.

    Peace <3
    Jay

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  4. Sounds fun! Glad you had a great time and are learning to make some nifty things. :-)

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