preparing for a toe up sock workshop

On Saturday 17th September, I am tutoring a workshop on knitting socks from the toe up. I am being assisted by two very experienced sock knitters, one of whom only knits toe up.

We will be using Judy's Magic Cast On (pending permission), some short-row shaping in the form of an hourglass heel from The Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook by Lynne Vogel (2002) - used with permission - and finishing with Jeny's Surprisingly Stretch Bind Off (also used with permission).

I have written the pattern for our sample sock. I have test knitted the pattern for 5 dpns, 4 dpns and two circulars. I have asked one of my assistants to translate the dpn instructions for Magic Loop (I hope it's not too complicated) and have asked the other one to re-test the instructions for 5dpns.

Here is my sample sock. Cute, huh?
What do you mean, you can't tell what size it is? LOL

Here it is again - those are my 20cm (8") Knitpick dpns added for scale!

This sock is a little too small - it is knitted on 24 stitches on 3.75mm (US 5) needles using 8ply (DK) yarn. I have re-written the pattern for 32 stitches; that will mean more practice on the short row heel, which can only be a good thing, right?

an old jumper

I knitted this jumper (sweater) back in the dark ages, before I had a blog. I finished it in 2003 and I think I worked on it (on and off) for about three years.

taken in artificial light but reasonably true to colour

It was inspired by Kaffe Fassett but is not one of his designs - it's one of my own. The theory is the diagonal patches of light colour would cause the eye to travel up or down rather than across as horizontal stripes would. I wanted something more interesting than stripes anyway!

I'm proud of this jumper but I don't love it. It's very thick and heavy; it's made mostly from 8ply (DK) weight yarn - with some 5ply (sportweight) and some 12 ply (chunky). It's mostly wool with a little bit of mohair.

I don't wear it very often - whenever I do, someone always wants to talk to me about it - it's not a jumper I can wear when I want to be "invisible"!

Now that I've seen the photos - it looks more like a man's jumper, doesn't it?

Today it formed the centrepiece of a workshop I gave on "colour theory for knitters". How did it go? I felt it went okay but it fell a bit flat! But you'd have to ask the participants for the real story, wouldn't you?


Can you guess how many different yarns are in the jumper?

I felt honoured

Last week I received a phone call from the member of the Knitters' Guild of NSW who is organising the biannual camp. She had heard that I was a good teacher and had recently done a couple of workshop on entrelac. She wanted to know if I would teach a session or two at the camp.

I was flattered. I wondered who had said something - but I think I have that figured out (three of the Guild's current executive are members of the same group to which I belong). Part of me wanted to say "yes" but part of me resisted.

You see, the camp is always held on the Long Weekend in October. WM has a rostered day off every fourth Friday and for the past couple of years, that Friday has been at the start of the October Long Weekend - as it is this year. Because he has four days off, we often go away.

So, we talked it over and guess what - I'm teaching two sessions of entrelac at the camp in October.

Is anyone else going to camp?

double knitting workshop

Today I tutored a workshop on double knitting at our Guild meeting. DD, of course, was not there - seems she found something more important to do!! LOL

My first article for the workshop was a sock I knitting in the round on straight needles for the sock workshop I tutored last year because double knitting in one colour results in a tube and that, after all, is what a sock is - a tube with a closed end.

So, in further preparation for the workshop I started this:

It began life as a scarf, just like the pattern on Ravelry. But it soon became obvious that this knit, in 5ply acrylic, was too firm to be a scarf. And it was way too slow to knit a scarf in thin yarn in this technique - so what you see will shortly become GS#1's first knitted bib. Thanks to Laurita who is encouraging me to knit a bib from her scarf pattern.

Wanting to show an article that would be interesting enough for the participants to want to know how it was done, I knitted this pot holder / heat pad. The pattern can be found on Ravelry.

Then it was time to design an article of my own for the workshop and write up the pattern. Here it is. Next time I would make it four inches wider but it is just big enough to be used as a coaster and if knitted in thinner yarns and repeating the motif it could be a bookmark.

 I had many nice comments about the workshop and people were amazed that something that looks so complicated could actually be so easy. Thanks to all the participants and to Merrin, our group convenor and Vicki, the workshop  coordinator, for continuing to have faith in me and allowing me the joy of tutoring in a hobby I love.