A Little Wine Would Have Helped

Last night, my Mom and I decided to stretch our minds by (at the last minute) signing up for a Color Work class at the Studio. There were a bunch of people in the class, probably at least 8-10 and it was a **** class in level of difficulty.

With this class, we are not really doing a specific knitting project, but just learning an overview of the Color Work technique itself, learning how to manage two colors at once. Last night, we did the Braided cast on. That was new! I guess they do it a lot in Estonian knitting. On the swatch I did you can see the braided cast on on the right side of this swatch. It creates a lovely braided v along the edge, see that? Interesting. The teacher, Karen, also talked about a two strand, two color cast. They were both totally different than I've used before. Very stressful to learn (at first). I think a glass of wine prior to class would have helped immensely!!!!

On the left side of this swatch, you will see the corrugated ribbing that we started to do just before class ended.

You know how I always say I'm a "loose kniter" -- well one of the things that Karen kept saying during the class was how she really hoped we'd practice knitting LOOSE - WAY LOOSE over this next two weeks until we meet again. Apparently with color work such as Fair Isle, it's very helpful to be a loose knitter. Those of us who are "loosey goosies" like my Mom and I actually have an advantage in color knitter. Wohoo!!! There's finally an advantage to be a loose woman. Since we were all so tense last knit before the big "aha!" moment happened, it might have been helpful to have been slightly buzzed before we went to class, but oh well, it all worked out in the end and I think I actually learned some new techniques.

We were motivated to take this class as an intro to color work, since we're taking Sally Melville's one-day Intarsia class on April 15th.

Our teacher, Karen, designed some darling gloves which employ some of the techniques we'll learn, namely knitting with two colors, developing a "hold" that allows us to knit Fair Isle comfortably, and also to read a chart - see picture here of her gloves. They are a two-color project that I might be able to do as I play along with this two-color technique. I couldn't resist buying the pattern. You can buy the pattern through The Studio. I still need to select my yarn.

Just what I need another project, right? I'm getting project schizophrenia right now. But who can resist these?