Just to let you know, I may not be posting much for the next week. Tomorrow I leave town for Stitches West. Friday, I’ll be spending the day roaming the market with my mom. Over Saturday and Sunday I’m taking three classes:Increases and Decreases (326), Chart Reading and Writing (544), and Hole-Istic Lace (529). I chose these three because I want to continue developing and writing patterns and each focuses on a skill that will help me further that goal. I wish I could have taken the actual pattern writing class, but that one was full by the time I enrolled. Increases and decreases have been a particular concern of mine: I want to make sure that the increases and decreases in my patterns really compliment the design and aren’t just default choices. I love knitting from charts and have downloaded a charting program, but haven’t begun to use it yet and figured a class on the subject might get me going. And the lace class? Well, I’m assuming it will give me more practice with increases and decreases and, well, it’s lace—need I say more?
I’ll get home Sunday night, then begin a week of conferences with all of my students to review the written portfolios they’re preparing. I have a definite hermit streak in me, and all that human contact will leave me pretty fried at the end of each day, but I am counting on the reviving powers of knitting to see me through.
The semi-Norwegian hat is two-thirds finished. Once it’s done, I plan to knit a second hat from the same pattern and yarn (or part of a hat, if I don’t have enought yarn left) reversing the main and contrast colors so that the background is variegated and the design is in solid orange. I want to be able to compare the two and think about the relative merits of variegated yarns as MCs and CCs before I start working on additional designs. I’ll post pictures of these as soon as I can once I’m done with them.