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Knit Michigan 2008

Posted February 11, 2008

Last week a bunch of us left Darlene and Kathy to fend for themselves at the shop while we traversed through slush and snow to the other side of the state. We loaded up a minivan and a Toyota Corolla with piles of yarn, t-shirts, totes, and other saleable goodies, then somehow crammed ourselves into the vehicles as well. “Why would you go to such lengths?” you ask. It wasn’t only for a slumber party at Kim’s parents’ Royal Oak condo; though that was surely a perk. Here I am with Marilyn getting caffeinated early on Saturday morning:
Marilyn & Jess

Our real reason for traipsing to the Detroit suburbs was to attend the second annual Knit Michigan. This event is a fundraiser for cancer-related organizations throughout Michigan. Knitting “marathoners” collect sponsors and attend to take classes, shop at vendors’ booths, and commune in a fibery manner.
Banner
We arrived at the venue on Friday evening to set up our booth. The allotted 45 minutes passed lickety-split, but we managed to create a 10-foot square tent replica of the brick-and-steel City Knitting we’d left back in Grand Rapids. That night we whip-stitched the final letters to our one hundred percent hand-made shop banner (now hanging on the wall in the shop, because we know you need to see it!), spread out our blankies, and crashed for a short sleep.
City Knitting Booth
Back at Knit Michigan by 8 am Saturday, we knew the real fun was beginning. Lorilee was among many instructors who volunteered their time to teach classes, while others staffed the booths and tried to accomplish transactions the old-fashioned way: without a computer! Imagine an elementary school gymnasium full of knitters and spinners. I’d be hard-pressed to find a friendlier atmosphere.
group knit
Two experiences highlight my day at Knit Michigan:
1. Watching Kristin H (our token marathoner) traipse about in her self-designed knit dress and our designer Lyra hat, making friends with everyone within a 1000-foot radius.
2. Bringing over 100 home-made hats from all of you out there, to donate to the participating organizations. And an added bonus: the organizers sent us right back home with a big box of hats to give to Lacks Cancer Center, here in our very own neighborhood.

Finally, a Big Thank You to all who donated hats for us to take to the event. And mark your calendar for the first Saturday in February 2009. We plan to be there again, and we’d love to see your faces in the crowd.

January Stash Knitting

Posted January 23, 2008

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When I was little, my mom sewed clothing for my sister and me, usually a matching pair of dresses in the same fabric. Scraps from those calico dresses would be passed to my grandma, who worked them all by hand into a full size cathedral window quilt. Today the dresses are long gone, but the quilt hangs over the banister at my mom’s, where we can look at the pieces and remember.

This month, using a Judith Shangold sweater pattern, I set out to use up some of the scraps of yarn in the City Knitting yarn stash in the back room. I bought a few fine mohairs to hold with the leaner yarns, so I could use just about everything- chunky to fingering weight. By holding some yarns single and combining others, I came up with enough combinations from 50 mini-balls of yarn to make this.

All in all, a very fun, quick knit with warm results.

All in garter stitch. All stripes formed from knitting two rows of a random choice before moving to the next.

I reduced many fair sized skeins to teeny little balls like these.

In making it, I got to relive some fine memories from life at the shop over the past couple years. I’ll share just one. One of my sweater stripes is made from the same furry yarn David W. used to knit a bear to give away. This bear’s round rear end, formed by some clever short row shaping, gave us some laughs that week. We couldn’t resist asking David to show his bear bottom to everyone. (Funnier in the hearing than in the reading.)

Nordic Knitting Conference in Seattle

Posted 28cb October 5, 2007

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News from Lorilee, who is on a Professional Development weekend on the West Coast
Well, today started with an early bowl of cheerios and ended with delicious Indian food - curry coconut shrimp. In between we had lots of fun.
We were packed and ready to go early. I stuffed some “Know Your Cuts of Lamb” t-shirts into my bag to give to deserving yarnies along the way. Diane, Sue and I boarded the plane in GR and had two smooth flights to land us in Seattle.
When I am traveling with my family, they might describe what I do as “knitting all the time.” Well, they have no idea what that means unless they’ve traveled with these two. No waiting time is wasted. Board plane, stuff bags in overhead, sit, buckle, kniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit, wait until captain turns off “fasten seat belts” sign, stop knitting. Wow.

I had a little embarrassing mishap upon takeoff out of O’Hare. I was working on the space invaders sock and didn’t notice that my ball of yarn had fallen off my lap. No problem, until the plane’s nose went up sharply and it started rolling down the aisle toward the rear of the plane. Not a thing I could do, so I looked back and watched it roll. Some people would notice it go by and try to grab it, but it was going too fast. Then of course, they had to look forward to see what kind of fool had let this happen. I got laughed at. It rolled all the way to the back of the plane from row 8. A long period of time passes on a plane before you can get up and retrieve things, or before a flight attendant happens by, so I just kept knitting until the tension over 30 feet of carpeting was too great, and I was stuck. Finally, flight attendant Carol came by. “Excuse me,” I said,” but I….I…you see here…” Carol is a knitter. She understood. She walked back there, got that skein, wound her way back to me, and then, after pulling out a good six feet or so, like a knitter would do, she gingerly tucked the rest of the skein into the magazine pouch in front of my knees. SHE got a shirt.
We picked up our rental car - a PT cruiser-, got lunch, and had some time to kill before meeting at Skacel at 1pm, so we went to Ikea first. Diane had never been to an Ikea store and thought it wonderful that one store could have so many options for storing yarn! as in “Oh, this would hold a lot of yarn; wouldn’t that hold a lot of yarn?”
Then we went to Skacel Knitting, our needle and yarn supplier, a place with truly lots of yarn, so Sue could say, “This is much more yarn than I have, but their ceilings are so much higher.” Well, that’s because it’s a warehouse, Sue. We had a wonderful time chatting with the fine folks there (they got some shirts, too), and talking about the knitting conference which begins tomorrow.
There is a feature about it in the local paper. Apparently, it sold out very quickly; we feel lucky. 200 knitters will be there;we can’t wait to meet them.
We are staying in a lovely B&B, which I won’t describe, because I can tell that you are already jealous.

Classes start early in the morning. I will listen and learn and bring back some good knitting knowledge.
Oh, I forgot to tell you how gorgeous a snowy Mt. Rainier is when you are flying next to it.
-Lorilee, Thursday night, October 4
Photos added later.
Susanna Hansson’s Bohus Stickning knitting class:

Susanna is in the back, wearing blue:

Our work:

Class with Annemor Sunbo: Magical Knitting

Our class results- mine is the cat with curved tail:

Pictured: me, Diane VanderPol, Annemor Sundo, Terry Shea, Sue Nuckolls

Seattle, viewed from the ferry returning from Bainbridge Island yarn shop hopping:

Tashi Delek!

Posted July 31, 2007

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Tashi Delek! That’s a traditional Tibetan greeting. My name is Kristi, and I’ll be a guest blogger for City Knitting on occasion. My family (husband and 7-month old daughter) and I live in Lhasa, Tibet, where we work for two international non-profit NGOs. In my spare time, I love to knit! So, I thought I’d give you all a taste of the knitting life here on the roof of the world. First, here’s a picture of how Lhasa looks. This is the Jokhang Temple, the most holy temple in Tibet:

Tibetan Buddhists from all over Central Asia make pilgrimages to this temple.
Right across from the Jokhang is my local version of “City Knitting”

No sorting by gauge here! This is the biggest market for yarn that I have found in Lhasa. Most of it comes from mainland China and IF it has a label with information on it, it’s in Chinese, which is no help to me. You can find decent wool in bright colors (I’m sure it’s great to felt with) and lots of acrylics, which doesn’t really interest me. What I’ve been interested in is yak wool. For those of you not familiar with a yak, here is a mom and her baby:

Yak wool yarn can be bought in the market as well, and comes with even less packaging than the Chinese yarn:

Here I am bargaining for my yak wool, (no fixed prices here- you have to bargain for everything- even in department stores). I am asking if he’s giving me the “foreigner” price or the local price. I hope I landed somewhere in the middle.

On the way home from the market, my husband (who took the photos - thanks!) asked how much I bought. They measure the wool by weight here, not length- so I have no idea how much yarn I bought in length, but that I bought two Jin, which is about a kilo of yarn. Seeing as how I don’t have a specific project in mind yet, I’m not worried about how many yards it is. I’m hoping to dye the wool and knit up and felt a bag. But that’s a whole other blog. Until next time, Tashi Delek!

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Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

Knit Michigan 2008

January Stash Knitting

Nordic Knitting Conference in Seattle

Tashi Delek!

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