Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Schoolin' --FI and Dbl K

It's been two months now since we came home from our wonderful Wisconsin/Michigan trek. Finally this house is looking more like a home than a junk heap. I finished a project and will blog about it later. Life is feeling more centered.



On the way home we stopped at "Sarey June's" (Russ-speak, as Linda says!) for a terrific tour of four Lansing area yarn shops.

Here, Sarah and I are in front of Threadbear. For years I'd looked at their website and followed their blogs. Things are changing there, as they do anywhere, but I'm sorry we missed meeting the guys and the dogs, although Sabrina and the crew were wonderful.



At Threadbear I was so very pleased to find Sarah's patterns on display, for sale. It makes me proud to know her and watch her doing well.

Although I kept taking pictures of things, I did not get inside pictures of what became my Lansing LYS of choice. Maybe this was because I felt so immediately at home at Woven Art. Nancy wasn't there that day, either. She does beautiful work, and I was particularly fond of the background music!


We're working backward in the progression here, but Lake Michigan must be included. That day was beautiful temperature and sky-wise. It was, however, very windy and the speed was lowered on the bridge in anticipation of possible closure due to winds in the 32 mph range and the bridge closes at 35 mph. We could feel the bridge swaying just a bit. All traffic drove the center lanes. Do you see the whitecaps on the lake? All pics are clickable to embiggen!}

Although school has started here in real time, at camp the minicourses develop in both a planned manner and on-the-spot. We had get-up-in-front-of-the-camera minicourses from Bridget, Al, Maggie, Janine and this very talented M'Lou Baber with others sharing constantly. Here's she's wearing her signature doubleknit nametag vest.
M'Lou shared the Art Deco hat pattern and methodology that are shown in her book on double knitting. The hat pattern is on the errata page at SHP site, as it was not included in the original printing of the book and many requests for the accessory hat were heard throughout the land. I've started the Art Deco tam but haven't really gotten far enough yet to share...or maybe I have. We'll see!!!

Janine Bajus the Feralknitter shared a capsulized version of her fair isle workshop with us. This had been a request during 2008 camp but Janine didn't have materials with her to share in handouts or samples which clarify the spoken word.

Right before lunch, Janine had gotten everything ready for her presentation and it was sitting on the front table by the camera, waiting to be shared. I loved the layout, as well as Janine's clear explanation of her method. Go ahead and click on the picture -- don't you just love all the possibilities?


Janine doesn't just "teach", but also "does". This fair isle yoke is a sweater Janine has been working on. I believe it's "Aunt Esther's Yoke Sweater" (I may be wrong.) My Aunt Syster had a life-long friend and housemate Esther in Stockholm, so I feel particular connection with this yoke. Should we be reminded that it's in the Swedish colors? I don't remember Janine talking about that, but it struck me immediately.

3 comments:

yarn elf said...

Sounds like a fun time to me, always like feeling yarn, forget about seeing it. Been thinking fair isles and you are not helping my will power of not starting one.

Glad you had such a great time with family and special friends this summer.

Nancy said...

Click on that workshop picture.....then you'll see loveliness to drive one immediately to the yarn aisle.

Penny said...

How cool was Threadbear Fiberarts. I've wanted to go there since they were in Indiana. I have been following them forever.

Maybe, someday I can do a road trip.

I missed seeing Sarah at Stitches Midwest. I heard from Mary Guy-Frank that she was there. I saw Mary, Linda Lutz, Cheryl and Ursula! Old home week.