Summertime Fun

Where has the summer gone?  Here it is almost mid-July and I haven’t had a chance to sit down and think, let alone knit!  Here’s a little recap:

Retreat was an incredible amount of fun.  The classes I sat in on were Bridging with Susan Guagliumi and Whip Your Knits! by Joan McGowan-Michael.  I learned an incredible amount in both classes and have already applied the fit techniques to Haley’s sewing pattern for 4-H (we’ll know this afternoon how she placed).  I had watched Susan’s Bridging technique on her DVD, which we now stock by the way, but didn’t quite understand it and seeing her do it in person was the ticket.  I think I’ll give it a go when I work on a mega-cable vest later this summer. 

After Retreat, we immediately left for TNNA and my brain is overloaded with neat ideas for both hand and machine knits as well as wonderful yarn.  Some of it is already arriving: Mauch Chunky will be on the website within the next couple of weeks and we are expecting Jojoland’s superwash solid to complement the Melody Superwash any day.  More to come spaced out over the next several months. 

After TNNA, we took a little family vacation and went to Chicago.  All of the walking between TNNA and Chicago has certainly done my heel in and I’ll have to fit a doctor visit in next week some time.  Anyways,  Chicago was fantastic!  The Museums were an inspiration, especially the old textiles in the Field Museum and Taste of Chicago was a lot of fun.  I tried a lot of food I normally wouldn’t think of tasting.  This is the first time in about 5 years I’ve gone on a vacation without computer!!

Now, countdown to 4-H Fair week.  I supervise my girls doing their projects and help advise them when they are stumped.  Haley likes to sew and I do not so it takes a lot of energy on my part to support her.  She was working on knitting socks two-at-a-time from the top down too, out of her hand-dyed sock blank pair we did last year about this time.  They didn’t get done, sadly, but maybe next year.  They are turning out quite cool.  Tara has been working on a cardigan from an Ella Rae book made out of Cotton Classic.  It is a Fair Isle and she used intarsia techniques to attach the front bands.  Most of the time she had four balls going at once and there were a lot of ends, but I did show her how to weave them in as you go, so that saved some time.  She’s just now left for the fairgrounds so we’ll see in a couple hours what the judge thinks about it.  Regardless, it’ll be hanging in the store to show everyone just how great Fair Isle can look in a cotton yarn. 

I’m working on the sleeves to my Slant on Nature and hope to spend some sit-down time at the fairgrounds this week to finish them up.  I really want to have it assembled, ends sewn in and, yes, everyone sit down, BLOCKED, before the Chic Knits knitalong starts the 23rd.