Knit 1 Weekend

 Well, we finally did it, we had our Knit 1 weekend. Knit 1 is a design school in Brighton, England where courses can be taken on amazing knitting techniques. My friend Sonja has the series of tutorial books purchased from their web site and four of us got our shorts in a bunch, chomping at the bit to try some of the techniques.

We got together at Terenya’s house in Niagara on the Lake where she has just finished building her studio in the attic. Big windows overlook the lake and Fort Niagara on the US side, sun streamed in to illuminate our efforts

 These bits are exercises in short rowing and striping, looks fairly straightforward but actually you have to get into the rhythm of pulling and pushing your needles and counting and remembering to only do TWO pink rows!!!

Terenya worked on a chunky which she prefers, and in yellow and pale blue. I had picked up some dull taupe and, at the last minute, hot pink to work with, I actually liked the combination when I got rolling.

I’m amazed I got everything into my beloved PT, too snowy to take out the seats and drag them to the garage but we managed, I picked up Sonja in Toronto with her two machines, table and yarn. Not to mention food, wine, books!!! But I got my foam dress form in as a place to pin our samples as we completed them (or they fell off our machines!!!)

 Here, Sonja and Terenja get side tracked from the set up by looking through her stash of items she made for a sale before Christmas….Saturday morning was a beautiful sunny day…. before the snow flew and Sandy, who had braved the blizzard arrived in the early afternoon.

 This is a cool sweater knit on the chunky.

Sonja is finally set up and knitting on into the evening.

Here are Terenya and Sonja in T’s kitchen working on yet more coffee! Terenya has a Kureg and we had great coffee…she even has a machine in her studio!

Sandy took some pics of me working on something but mostly of me unraveling ravel cord!

Sandy had some lovely yarn that she’d picked up at Sew-Knit-Serge from Peter Smith in Toronto, it was some Forsell that I had never worked with and beautiful colours …. but he has no more, drat!

Here she’s done short rows but made large (non wrapping) holes. Instead of knitting to your hold sts, wrapping and returning, knit to and fro with the sts in hold, several rows then pull up your next needles into hold.

 Sandy pressing her pieces. I got to sit on an antique bench at my machine, I fell in love with it and liked it so much more than my swivel chair! I was able to pile stuff on the seat on either side of me.

Oh, and by the way, we had company in shape of Terenya’s three Yorkies! Once they got used to us they were really sweet.

More of Sandy’s work.

Something I wanted to try out of an old Machine Knitting News (no longer in print – sadly).

Terenya’s leg warmers.

Here’s the gang….taking a break for a walk around the beautiful houses in Niagara on the Lake.