Sunday, June 29, 2008

lots of updates!

We’d like to wish Krista English well, she’s moving back home to Texas. We’ll miss seeing her at The Needle Lady. She sent us these fabulous pictures of the Mason-Dixon Mitred Square blanket she’s been working on for a friend. Krista, thanks for the pictures and thanks for bringing in the actual blanket so I could see it before it was gifted!

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I’m trying to restrain myself from starting one immediately. We just had a customer see the pictures and the next thing she was walking out of the shop with Mason Dixon knitting under her arm and 20 skeins of Cotton Classic—heading to the beach for a week of sun, fun and mitres!

I'm just back from TNNA (the National Needlework Association) for my semi-annual “yarn and everything related to it” buying trip. It’s always energizing, exhausting and a lot of fun. I also get a chance to take some classes with the superstars of the knitting/crochet world. This time around I took a finishing class with Leslye Solomon, and a class with my favorite teacher of all, Sally Melville—she’s teaching “Stripes that are and Stripes that Aren’t”. As always I tried to lure her to The Needle Lady at some point in the future. I also met Margaret Fisher who will be doing a very exciting weekend of classes at The Needle Lady October 4 and 5. Check the website for details on that weekend. The Yarn Harlot was the luncheon speaker on Friday.

I went straight from TNNA to a week in Hatteras on the Outer Banks—my favorite vacation place. Vacation always requires the necessary packing of several knitting projects—the memories always are knit into the project so this requires careful consideration. One week at the beach produced the ever popular Touch Me shawl—18 skeins of incredible softness and color—I can still remember lining up the stripe sequence out on the deck, only to have everyone else tweak the choices. There was also the red Noro Hana silk top vacation, the entrelac market bag vacation knit out of Classic Elite Montera, the Hempathy crocheted top….still unfinished.

What should I do next? Please vote on the sidebar...

1) the Prism Dots and Dashes jacket in the Orchard colorway (much more beautiful than even the photo shows)

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2) the ivory Absolutely Fabulous Throw that is a belated wedding present for friends

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30 the Minnow knits ruffled baby vest out of the new Corntastic.

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Here are our 2 versions of the Spring cover of Vogue Knitting, modeled by Kim Lo and Debby Ware---apparently the instructions were lacking, so much so, that there were 50+ pages of explanations on Ravelry. Debby threw up her hands and finished the top with her favorite seed stitch making it her own. The end result for both versions is stunning—it was knit side to side so the cabling goes on the horizontal. Great looking ladies and the sweaters too!

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So while Elizabeth is busy at Monticello for the 4th (have you heard who's coming?!!), we'll all be chipping in on this blog. Happy knitting and come see us soon!

Mimi

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