Channeling Elizabeth

The best way I could think of to extend the magic of Knitting Camp was to knit an Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern, so I chose The Katmandu Hat.

While I was at camp, I bought a skein of the Rangeley yarn that the pattern is written for. (You can buy it from Schoolhouse Press if you follow the link.) I should have chosen a lighter color because this is my second attempt. The charcoal color made it hard for me to see I was skipping a step in my first try.

The pattern is from this book, which was published post-humously and features garter-stitch patterns:

You start knitting at the bottom center of the back. If you look very closely at my photo, you can see that V beginning to emerge in my knitting.

Happily, I feel a bit of the magic of camp with every knit and purl. EZ was a knitting architect, and this pattern displays that talent. One of the great things about camp is that it builds your confidence. This pattern incorporates a slew of different i-cord methods, all of which are new to me. I don't think I'd be willing to try them if I had not been to camp.

I finished Peggy Guggenheim by Francine Prose, largely because it was short. As much as I love modern art, it was hard to stick with Peggy. She was a self-centered rich woman who neglected her children while she chased men and artists (who were sometimes one and the same). I will give her credit for having good taste in art at least.

Tonight I'll dive into The Forgotten Girls. It's an impulse buy from Target so I hope I didn't waste my money. I'm just in the mood for some suspense, and this novel is by Sarah Blaedel, who is one of Denmark's top mystery writers. I'll let you know if it's good or not.

I'm joining in with Ginny for Yarn Along.

Knitting Camp Rocks

Look who I spent the last five days with:

Yes, that is Meg Swansen, daughter of Elizabeth Zimmerman and doyen of the knitting world. I know I am very lucky that her famous camp in Marshfield, Wis., is just a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Madison. That makes it so much more affordable!

This is my second year at camp, and it just gets better every year. The staff is just amazing. Meg does the morning class; Amy Detjen and Heather Black are the workhorses -- they are there early and late, greasing the gears and answering endless questions.

Amy shows off her holiday leggings.

As you know, knitters are the nicest people on the planet.  Some of my favorite people from last year were back, and I made so many new friends, including indie Indianapolis dyer, Mandie Harrington. She sells her amazing yarn under the name of Sheepy Time Knits.

Here she's selling her yarn at the market. I sold my knitting-related earrings and paid for about 10% of the trip with my proceeds.

This year was especially fun because my dear friend Marsha went with me.  We are just so compatible and had a great time together. It feels weird that she's not here knitting with me now!

Yes, I bought yarn and fell in love with more EZ patterns, but that's for another post. In the meantime, let me leave you with some of the wit and wisdom of Meg Swansen:

"I'm helpless with written directions; the apple didn't fall far from the tree."
"If it's something you never  want to see again, give it to charity and someone will be happy to have it."
And my favorite:
"Cheating is not only permitted in knitting, it is encouraged."

Happy 4th to all in the U.S.

Mistakes!

My Swirl Yoke Sweater was coming along so beautifully. I grafted the 7 underarm stitches without a hitch. Then I tried to close the "sloppy stitches" at either end of the grafted stitches. Even following Meg's directions, you can see how awkward my attempt is.

 Here it is in all its close-up ugliness.

Clearly this is something I need to work on. I think a big part of my problem is that I don't fully understand the way the stitches are supposed to come together. Some people learn to "read" their knitting faster than others, and I'm not one of the fast ones. Lucky me, I have a second arm to practice on.

And then I have another error to report. In her gracious way, Meg pointed out that in my journaling from camp, I mixed up SSK with CDD. Here is how she explained the latter to me:

The cdd (centered double-decread\se): slip 2 tog k'wise, k1, p2sso

Barbara Walker's original ssk: slip 1 k'wise, slip 1 k'wise, insert L needle and k2tog

Dee Barrington's variation of ssk: slip 1 k'wise, slip 1 p'wise, insert L needle and k2tog.

 

Hopefully you  can learn from my mistakes!

Camp Knitting and Reading

The child's Swirl Yoke Sweater was optional homework for camp. I'm so glad that I started it at home because I really needed help at camp! I would have given up on my own.

I knit up to the armholes at home. The sleeves knit up quickly at camp, but I could not figure out how to get them onto the circular needle without help. The swirl pattern confused me, too, but a camper helped me with that.

Then there is the Pelerine shawl. This is something I would never have appreciated if I had not gone to camp. Pictures simply don't do it justice. Nor can a photo convey the lofty loveliness of unspun Icelandic yarn.

Yes, it is scratchy stuff, but this shawl will be perfect for winter, when it won't touch my skin. I love the history of this yarn: The Vikings brought these sheep to Iceland about 1100 A.D. and the sheep lineage has been kept pure. When you knit with this yarn, you are using the same fiber that the Vikings did! How cool is that?

Unspun Icelandic is carded, but not spun. Instead, it is peeled into strips and wound into "plates." The tables of plates for sale at camp were downright delicious! It is a bit fragile, but you can spit-felt it back together quite easily, which makes colors changes a snap -- and eliminates tails that must be woven in later.

John Green's Paper Towns was my bedtime reading at camp.

I wanted to read it before the movie comes out. You may recognize Green as the author of the best-selling book (and movie), The Fault in Our Stars. Like Stars, Paper Towns is well-written with witty dialogue and a well-planned plot. It mulls over some pretty heavy philosophy, too (in a good way).  It wasn't quite as good as Stars, but if you want more John Green, pick up this one.

I'm joining up with Keep Calm Craft On and Yarn Along. See you there!

Knitting Camp: Part II

Here she is, the lady who makes Knitting Camp so special, Meg Swansen:

And, yes, this is my handwriting:

And it couldn't happen without Amy Detjen, she who loves purple:

Here Amy is helping some campers master steeking. I had decided long ago that I would never steek, but Meg and Amy make it look perfectly do-able. So, maybe I'll change my mind.

This is what our classroom at the Holiday Inn in Marshfield looked like. (Aside: The hotel did a great job hosting us. The spaces were lovely and the food was delicious!) If you look closely, you can see Meg teaching up front.

Of course, I was knitting away, and I'll share that tomorrow for Keep Calm and Craft On.

Some Images From Knitting Camp

Gearing Up For Knitting Camp

In 48 hours, I leave for Meg Swansen's Knitting Camp in Marshfield, Wisconsin. Whoo-hoo! I have to admit that I am as nervous as I am excited. I am not a very confident knitter, so I am sure that everyone else will knit better (whatever that means!) than I do. I'm actually OK with that.  I do worry that I will find out that I do everything wrong and I will have to relearn everything.

I would worry about people laughing at some of my knitting habits, but I have found that knitters are unusually nice people.

I have made some progress on my homework, the Spiral Yoke Baby Sweater:

I'm using lavander and purple Encore Worsted because I think it's a sturdy yarn for kids and the baby I have in mind has a mom who loves purple.

I am not sure what else to bring, knitting-wise, so I'm going to fill an entire suitcase with the yarn and projects. That is the beauty of traveling by car -- no luggage limits!

I stumbled on two knitting books that I just HAD to have.

Obviously, I could not resist Handknitting by Meg Swansen. I thought reading a bit of in advance would help me understand her knitting approach.

And what leftie could resist a book called Knitting for Anarchists? Anna Zilboorg has written some gorgeous books about knitting ethnic (and elaborate!) hats and mittens. This looks like an entirely different animal. Besides, I never get tired of reading about knitting. Do you?

I'll be joining Nicole for Keep Calm Craft On and Ginny for Yarn Along. Join us!

Who Is This?

Recognize this lady?

You probably knew before I asked that this is a photo of Elizabeth Zimmerman, the doyen of modern American knitting. She is on my mind because I just found out that I'll be going to Knitting Camp this summer.

Even though the famous knitting camp (now run by Zimmerman's daughter, Meg Swansen) is less than two hours away from Madison, I never considered attending before this year because I'm just not that good of a knitter. It would be embarrassing, I was sure, because everyone else would be a master knitter and I would be revealed as a knitting fraud.

But the new knitting friends I met at last month's Sun Valley retreat talked me into it. They have all attended before and they said that the camp really is for everyone. They talked about how much fun it is, and by the end of that retreat, I was sold.

Here I've grown up in the shadow of EZ and never really thought about how cool that is. Now, though, I'm getting excited. I guess I need to actually read my copy of Knitting Without Tears before camp starts on July 2!