Vogue Knitting Live 2014 (recap #vklive)

What Did I Do?
I took the all day “Machine Knitting for Beginners” class on Friday (more here). The instructor mention that a few of her classes had room for one more person so at lunchtime I signed up for her Sunday “Hand Knitting for Machine” class (I’ll recap class in my next post).

I attended Anna Hrachovec’s Toy Design lecture. It’s amazing how she’s developed her mochimochiland brand.

What Came Home With Me?

Everyone flipped out over the buttons at the vintage button booth – it was just too easy to pick up a handful. I have so many colors in my yarn stash that I was sure anything I picked would work out.

I bought a skein of Dragonfly Djinni yarn in the color way “Show Special”. I’ve heard good things about their yarn and will probably make a pair of socks.

One vendor brought shelves of Madelinetosh but what did I find? A skein of Lucy Neatby’s Cat’s Pajama sock yarn. The same vendor had Lucy’s Knitting DVDs too.

My biggest surprise of the day was finding Indigodragonfly yarn! My friend Kim is the owner and creator of that yarn. We “met” on Ravelry years ago. I remember when she wanted to start dyeing yarn and how we all encouraged her to start her business. I’m sure the booth reps at La Maison Tricotee thought I was a loon, posing Kim’s yarn so I could take a photo. Of course I couldn’t walk away with getting a skein of sock yarn.

As I made one last pass around the marketplace I found that Jimmy Beans had a booth. I almost caved and bought some yarn kits until I realized that I could just order them when I got home. But it was nice to see the kits in person.

What Caught My Eye?

One of the hand knits I loved is this gingerbread mitten that was displayed at the Windy Valley Muskox booth.

I spent a bit of time talking to the ladies at the Julia Hilbrandt booth. She handcrafts beautiful bags out of felt. Three of my fiber friends have these bags.

For the first time there was a sample sale with the proceeds going to the Make A Wish Foundation. Apparently everything sold out in less than 2 hours:

And VK Live does a great job bringing fiber artists to their art gallery. Many folks loved Carol Milne’s knitted glass display but my favorite display was goinggnome‘s chessboard and felted pieces:

My Last Thought
I had a nice balance of learning and shopping. I’m already planning my classes for next year!

Intro to Machine Knitting (Vogue Knitting Live #VKLive #yearofmaking)

About 6 weeks ago I was looking at the Vogue Knitting class schedule and poof, I saw that the all day Introduction to Machine Knitting class did not have a sold out sign anymore. Did they add more seats? Did someone cancel? No matter, I quickly registered and with a few keyboard clicks I was in.

Last year I acquired a Bond Sweater machine from someone who upgraded to a Silver Reed. I would finally use it! We were lucky to work with Silver Reed LK150 straight out of the box. I thought of my Bond machine and wondered how long I would use it before thinking about upgrading.

After learning how to put the machine together we learned how to feed the yarn, cast on the first row and how the carriage works. After some practice rows we learned how to use the tools to increase and decrease stitches – the curling sides of the grey yarn makes it hard to see this. I also played around with setting the number of stitches per inch – I brought DK weight yarn which I used at settings 5 or 7.

I also bound off stitches when I switched back to the cream color.

In the afternoon session we were encouraged to try out different techniques. Some folks tried out striping, lace, and/or texture techniques. I tried to follow a mosaic pattern but my stitches kept dropping:

I should get better with some practice. The instructor, Susan Guagliumi has written two books on this topic and she has worked over 25 years in the knitting machines industry. She is an excellent teacher and very knowledgeable about the topic. I highly recommend her if you want to start to use a knitting machine.

Big Apple Knitting Guild’s Yarn Auction

The Big Apple Knitting Guild holds a yarn auction every year. It’s members donate yarn to the auction and the proceeds go to fund various programs that take place throughout the year.

My goal this year was to purchase yarn I normally wouldn’t work with. But even before the auction started I had purchased these tempting items:

A pink/gray grab bag and a set of sock yarn pattern books.

At the beginning of the auction I was knitting but once the bulky yarns were sold I put my project away and started to pay attention to the bidding. What did I come home with?

1- 12 balls of Brown Sheep NatureSpun for colorwork

2- Katia Gatsby – I had purchase this yarn years ago and I didn’t have enough for a sweater. I was thrilled to bid $8 for 6 balls! I’ll add 2 balls to the 7 I have already (yay cardigan!). The other 4 can be used for a holiday shawl.

3- Leftovers of Unique Sheep Gradience – always like to try out yarn from indie dyers.

4- My Guild buddy, Jane, won several grab bags of Opal and Online sock yarn. I asked her which one was her least favorite and I bought it from her:

5- And my final purchase was 1/2 a skein of Wollmeise Twin sock yarn. It turns out I have a full skein of Wollmeise in the same gray ( Im Jahr der Ratte) so now I can figure out a project that uses 700 yards instead of 500 yards. Yay!

I spent half my budget, which leaves the remaining half available for for this weekend’s Vogue Knitting Live. And knitters, that is a good thing.