Hold on to your knitting needles – have we got something fun for you!

We have been (very!) excitedly planning a weekend of learning new knitting tricks and techniques for spirited and adventurous knitters also known as Plucky knitters!

Your Friendly Vendors ~

Sarah Dimond, owner of The Plucky Knitter, has been dyeing like a madwoman since 2007.  Her love of color and her obsession with all shades of gray keeps her very busy and highly entertained. http://www.thepluckyknitter.com and http://www.ravelry.com/groups/the-plucky-knitters

Hayley – Sarah, along with her sister, Hayley, will be your point person(s) and hostesses for the weekend. You will see Hayley’s smiling face upon arrival and if you need anything at all, she is your gal!

Your Teachers ~

Sivia Harding learned how to knit in 2000 and has been churning out patterns since 2003. Her work has appeared in publication under her own name, plus being featured in online magazines Twist Collective and Knitty, various subscription clubs, and in many knitting books. Sivia is known for her work with exceptional beaded knits. She joins us from Portland, Oregon. Read more about Sivia at http://www.siviaharding.com.

Lorilee Beltman happily sees no end to where one’s knitting curiosity can take them, so she enjoys helping knitters make new discoveries. Although she considers herself primarily a teacher, 2012 will see her designs popping up in a few public places. When not traveling to teach at national knitting events, she has enjoyed tent camping at nearly twenty National Parks with her all-boy family. She joins us from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more about Lorilee at http://www.city-knitting.com.

Your Location ~

Downtown Holland, Michigan is a lively and lovely area for shopping, dining and strolling. Enjoy the fresh spring landscape and perhaps some early tulips before the rush of visitors arrive in early May for the largest tulip festival in the U.S.

City Flats Hotel, the first LEED Gold Certified Hotel in the Midwest, will host our group for two nights. Consider coming a day early or staying a day late to enjoy more of what Holland has to offer, including miles of sandy Lake Michigan beaches. Read more at http://cityflatshotel.com/holland, but please do not book your room just yet.  A block of rooms is already reserved, and you will want to use the registration code provided later in order to get the block discount.  What you can do is make plans to pair up with a friend to share a room, so that you can be ready when registration opens.

Your Schedule: Friday-Sunday, April 13-15, 2012 ~

We were joined by knitters from Massachusetts, Maryland, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, New York, Michigan, British Columbia, New Zealand and more.  Our group was made up of about forty knitters, plus some of their most charming non-knitting friends and family.  Students ranged from beginner to expert, and I wish to thank and congratulate all of them for being so game to try some new things, and so patient when reviewing.

Knitters gathered for class and for evening knitting time when we wished.  We also enjoyed the sit-down dinner time to get to know each other.  Excuse me for not having more photos of knitters, but I am usually more comfy pointing the camera at a scene.

So let me share some.  While the ship sailed northward to Glacier Bay, we had two days for classes before reaching Glacier Bay National Park:

Charley and I are on the bow deck:

A close-up of the unusual blue color of the glacier.  This is the Johns Hopkins Glacier.

Our first port was Juneau, where we selected a kayak tour for our shore excursion.  We paddled right over and amongst so many salmon that the water appeared to be boiling.

In Sitka, before our organized tour, Sian and I made our way over to the Bishop’s House, part of the Park system now, but formerly the residence of the Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church.  Here are Sian and Kim, one of our patient herders.

And some of the interior at the Bishop’s house:

Then we had a knitting group fiber tour.  I did not take photos of our group leader Bobbie Daniels in her Raven Frog Fiber studio, but I did snap some when she took us to the Fortress of the Bear, a facility that cares for orphaned cubs destined for zoos.  This is the high school senior portrait pose.

This one, I swear, is just a guy wearing a bear suit.

In Ketchikan, a couple of hardy knitters joined me and Charley to go snorkeling.  The thick wetsuit, beside making you feel like a tube of toothpaste the way your face get squished out the top of the mask, keeps you toasty warm.  This is recently-engaged Shelby on the left, and Jill on the right.

There were more classes, and many chances to visit yarn shops.  Our last stop was an evening visit to Victoria.

There Jared and I were elated to discover two shops loaded with authentic Cowichan sweaters.  Charley should have taken this one home.

Once it was all over and we said our goodbyes, we had one day to kill in Seattle where we found the bubblegum alley near Pike Street Market, then joined Jeny Staiman (of bind off fame) and her daughter for lunch and a quick yarn shop hop.

The scenes were great, but the people made the trip.  Thanks, Melissa, and thanks, Kim and Karen for managing all of us straying sheep all week.  Knitters, you were all wonderful.

I mow weird.

The backyard gets mowed in a big circle.  It’s basically a square, so I figure I save gas and turning time by just making a big bullseye, like this, before tidying up the corners:

Today I realized I could save time in the front yard, a big capital “L” shape with lots of obsticles, or more fondly worded, trees.  I used to work back and forth, mitering the corners.  But just now I employed the knitting technique of short row shaping to knock off those corners.

Instead of working back and forth, I could work this in the round, too. After all, if I am honest with myself, I prefer working in the round.

If I am really honest with myself, I see knitting brain and mowing brain are the same brain. I can’t escape. Help me.

Actually, leave me be.  See the pretty things around me:

Also joining us will be a host or two assigned to help us learn the ropes and find the yarn and fiber shops along the way.  We have a nice bunch of knitters already signed up to join us, but there may be room for just a couple more of you.  Read about the details in this recent newsletter, or at the Craft Cruises website, where you can sign up.

Join your cruising mates at Churchmouse Yarns & Teas, The Weaving Works, and Tricoter the day before sailing. Special events and discounts are planned.

I’ll be guiding you along in your learning in the following workshops:

Magic Loop Toe Up Socks

Cast Ons for Castaways

Holey Squares Scarf

Convert to Continental Knitting

Continental Knitting- Going Farther Faster, a continuation to solidify your skills and learn more knitting maneuvers.

And, Our Favorite Things, an information-packed class of tips and discoveries taught by both Jared and me.

I can’t wait.

Those of you who know him will not be surprised to learn that he just received over 300 cards for his 49th birthday. One of the memories noted was from someone married to a woman Mark proposed to.  Another from a woman who says he is the only other man beside her husband whom she can kiss (without objections). He is consistent.

The other update is in regards to the socks- they were not rejected.

My, how did I ever get such a nice teaching schedule?  One class per day, which leaves plenty of time to recharge, perhaps with some shopping.

It’s getting real now!  Have fun.  Let me know if you are going.

Sock Summit Classes

Here’s a recent photo, at a family gathering for Thanksgiving, checking us off his list as we arrive.  Orderly, I say.

Mark got my portion of the family’s cleaning genes.  The guy’s closet is so orderly, even his t-shirts are on hangers, spaced evenly across the bar.  In it are also stacks of clean white undershirts and tidy whities.  He’s lived in a group home for the last several years, but when he was living home, the freshest, cleanest underwear, socks, and deoderant sticks would go missing from my father’s closet, swapped out for his old ones.

He also keeps only pointy new crayons, and stacks and stacks of paper to draw on.  He used to be bothered by the family using his closet as an office supply store, so he took to carefully drawing a tiny cross centered on the bottom of EVERY page, thousands of sheets, to render it useless to the rest of us.  Clever!

When he visits my house, he likes to point out that the floor needs vaccuming.  Lucky for me, all I have to do is invite him to take care of it, and he does.  He even winds the vac cord properly in place when he is finished, instead of loosely looping it like me.  Then he’ll sit and play the piano a while, one of two or three tunes of his own making that he’s repeated for forty years.  Most of our extended family can hum these tunes.

Mark likes things new and tidy.  One year I made him a pair of felted slippers.  He opened them and quickly cast them aside, noting he preferred new ones.  New, machine made, wrapped-in-a box with price tags kind of new. What was I thinking?

Mark is 48.  And now he is sick.  Quite sick.  He is the sweetest patient around, and when in the hospital charms the nurses with a gentlemanly kiss on the hand.  I did have to teach him to NOT propose if he notices a ring.  He has taken that to heart, which is really funny to watch, because he will look for a ring now before proposing.  So funny.

Now our parents are caring for him at home with extreme patience and love.

As we knitters are prone to do, I have the urge to knit him something.  We do this selfishly as it makes us feel better, right?  So I have decided to make thick house socks, and maybe some matching hand warmers, as they, too, get cold.  I shopped Blue Moon Fiber Arts for a manly hand-dyed semi-solid in STR heavyweight.  These will be quick and warm.  I only hope the hand-dyed variegation doesn’t show too much, because if he notices, he may raise an eyebrow. I’ll have to be very cunning about it. I may even have to buy a pair of socks, if only to re-purpose the packaging.

So I finished these over spring break, and have them packaged, ready to go.

This weekend we made the nine-hour drive to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, to the Keweenaw Peninsula where our oldest son lives.  He’s in his third year at Michigan Tech, which explains the hard-drive mobile you’ll see below.  The Finnish population in the town of Hancock celebrated Heikinpaiva, which I heard translated as “the bear rolls over”.  I don’t know if you can see it, but our middle son pushing the youngest is wearing his Christmas hat, the ‘Dwarven Battle Bonnet’. He got lots of looks, smiles and comments, and had his picture taken a lot. (Pattern is by Sally Pointer here on Ravelry.com.) Edited to add: our youngest is wearing his own design, a tall, felted striped number he knit when he was 11 and 12.  It took him that long only because it was lost for a whole winter rolled up in the family tent.

A gathering of Finns makes for great knitwear ogling.  I didn’t have the courage to photograph them all but personally enjoyed it a lot.

That’s our tubist in the super-bulky alpaca striped hat.  The Michigan tech pep band was invited to march in the parade.  The group is talented, and very irreverent- all the more fun.

We had a chance to visit his home and meet his roommates, all math/aeronautics/computer science guys.  The house is full of computers, some housed in cardboard boxes.  There is a dedicated workroom for doing whatever it is they do with circuit boards and stacks of other components.  The house is spartan to say the least,  but there are a couple artistic touches, including this mobile our son made.

He rented snowshoes for the lot of us so we went off into the woods.  Below this creek there were ice climbers on the frozen waterfall.  At the end we had a view from high overlooking the bay.

This is the very bitter cold at the Lake Superior shore, a quick  walk on day two.

After a chilly hike the Gipp burgers at The Michigan bar in Calumet were just the ticket. KNITTERS, I want you to help me out with this. Take a look at this mural painted over the bar.  It was painted in 1908 by a guild from Milwaukee. It pictures several dancing couples.  Look at the leg warmers.

Shorts- bare knees- short leg warmers- bare ankles- shoes with bare feet. What’s up with this? Was this ever a thing? To anyone who can shed some light on this, thanks.

Wanting a “summery” Holey Squares Scarf to wear at Stitches West in Santa Clara next month, I took just this project with me. As we went back home over the Mackinac Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere, I had nine squares done. Fourteen to go. (Yarn is Filatura di Crosa ‘Fancy Tempo’, two balls each of two different colors, cotton & acrylic.)

-Lorilee

This time I was going for something a little sleeker, not as bulky, just a good close-fitting house slipper.  It starts with Judy’s Magic Cast On [bows toward Judy in Oregon], continues with magic loop knitting, short row shaping, an optional color change, and straps for the instep.  No seams.  Just ends to darn in (two if one color and four if two colors), and felting to fit.

These are MINE!

With two colors, think of the gifts you could make using your favorite student’s school colors.  I really like Nashua’s ‘Creative Focus Chunky’ for these. It’s a Westminster Fibers yarn. The wool/alpaca blend is warm and felts so well, plus the palette is exquisite. Get two balls for the sole color and one for the instep.

The short rows and decreases were planned for good fit.  The pattern is written in three women’s sizes, although the larger two sizes would work as well for men, with perhaps less time in the washing machine.  It uses one circular needle and bulky single ply wool, 200 – 300 grams, depending on whether or not you go with two colors.  Here are a few photos and a “buy” button if you wish to give it a try.  I hope you like it.

Thanks to my Yarnie friends Ellen, Kristin, Leslie and Liesl for test knitting!

-Lorilee

Above- two pair knit with Rowan ‘Colourscape Chunky’, before felting.

Click here- $5.00 Okay, so I can’t get this linky thing going at the moment, but you can go here or to Ravelry.com.

With just a few glances at the pattern (here and  here) for certain numbers, I can crank out a full pair, double souled, in three hours.  (Granted those of you with normal-length feet and toes may need to add some time.) Another half hour to felt and shape, and my feet are cozy.  It’s about the something-teenth pair I’ve made, and the third pair for me.  This pair is made from Yarn Hollow wool hand dyed here in Michigan.

It’s been a beautiful fall here in Michigan.  My boys are in varsity crew and can drive themselves to the river. Our exchange student is on a different novice schedule and needs a ride there, and, two hours later, back.  That makes no sense to me, so I stay there and have built it in as my knitting time, three days a week, unless groceries are more pressing. I grab a lawn chair marked “Kyle” out of the boathouse, haul it to the Grand River’s edge, sit there, and knit.

Boats go by- mostly crew boats (dude on the left is one of mine), but occasionally a fisherman in a yellow aluminum boat and a loyal pit bull on board.  Occasionally, great heron, migrating ducks I can’t identify and hawks fly by. Sometimes I sit next to spiders that hide, but I know they are there.

But one day I got to sit with my friend Judy from Portland.  That was way nicer.

Forced [planned] relaxation is good.