Gratifying

By | April 24, 2012

Wanna see what I did at Stitches South?

crocheted samples...
not quite glow-in-the-dark, but close!

On my way to Stitches, I realized I had a chunk of free time on Sunday afternoon before my flight home – enough time to take a class, something I haven’t had a chance to do in years. Edie Eckman graciously said I could sit in on her Join Together: Six Join-As-You Go Crochet Methods class. This was gonna be fun! I’ve been itching to do some crochet for a while – many new books include fabulous crochet stitch patterns that just scream to be played with. And Edie’s class promised to share easy ways of joining crochet (or knit!) motifs.

But as I hadn’t planned on taking a class, I was left with two problems: 12 homework swatches, and no yarn to do the homework. Off to the Market! I scored a couple skeins of trusty Brown Sheep Nature Spun, in vibrant colors. (Hey, why do tan and light sage when you can do teal and purple?) And from that point, I snuck in a few minutes of crocheting every chance that I could… finishing the last swatch late on Saturday evening.

Come Sunday afternoon, it felt really strange to be sitting in the back of the room rather than standing in the front. Time sped by, though: we learned three basic techniques for joining two motifs, and a variety of strategies for applying those techniques. The circle motifs shown above, for example, were joined by working one extra round on each motif – this is a great approach when you want to work the motifs separately, as portable on-the-go projects, then join them with outlines in contrast colors. The squares, on the other hand, were joined with one continuous piece of yarn – just two ends to weave in! And for the hexagons? I used a combination approach: joining the purple hexagons together with teal, then joining the teal hexagons to each other and to the purple hexagons with purple.

But as much as I enjoyed Edie’s class, the most gratifying moments at Stitches were when students from years past came up to me and said how learning to read charts or to knit seamless set-in sleeves had changed their knitting lives. Comments like “I never work from written instructions anymore!” and “I love knitting my sleeves from the top down now” are really what make teaching worthwhile.

This Stitches held a special bonus surprise for me too. At the end of Socktastic Stitch Patterns, as the students were filing out, I caught sight of some fantastic socks. Of course I had to compliment the wearer. We got to talking, and when she discovered I had never worked with the yarn in question – Hazel Knits Artisan Sock – she gifted me with a couple (substantial!) leftover balls to swatch with:

don’t you just love the colors?
wish you could feel the yarn too!

Wasn’t that sweet? Thanks, Tricia!

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