Fiber Fun In The Sip -- Part 2

I know, I know, I promised you this post yesterday.  But by the time I'd gone and picked up the dogs, then checked Facebook, I'd let the time get away from me and just didn't want to get started that late in the day.

Yes, I am I'm Going To Bed At 8:00 PM years old.

So, anyway, a bit part of the Fiber Fun In The Sip festival was the classes.  There were many to choose from, but I only took two.  My first class was continental knitting.  Now, for those of you who may be knitting muggles (ahem, Edna...ahem, Tommy)  (There, you each have one mention to add to your tallies), here is a brief video showing the difference.



Like most Americans these days, I learned English style.  A few years ago, I'd tried to learn Continental, but just couldn't get the hang of it.  I'd hoped that maybe with an actual, live person teaching me instead of a book or YouTube video, maybe I could finally pick it up.  Get it?  Pick it?*

Never mind.

Moving right along...

This was my Friday afternoon class, and these were my classmates  Melissa, Heather, Me, and a lady whose name I am ashamed to say I don't remember.  I think it was Beth, so that's what I'm going to go with.

Beth was hilarious.  And also, backwards.  What I mean by that is, when people learn to knit, they usually pick up the knit stitch fairly easily, but struggle with the purl stitch.  Of course, we already knew the basics.  We just had to learn to do them with our other hands.

Beth struggled and struggled with knitting continental style, but she kept plugging away at it.  When she finally decided she was ready to try purling, she took to it like a duck to water.  She just zoomed along, while the rest of us struggled to keep up.

This lady, the one standing, was our instructor, Katie Clark.  She works and teaches at The Knit Studio down in Jackson.  I've been there a couple of times, but their yarn is a bit too high end for my budget.

This is her daughter, showing me the pin mom had given her.

Here, Katie is showing Heather how to do increases and decreases.

She also showed Melissa how to do two colors, which you can do by holding one strand of yarn in each hand and using continental knitting for one, and English for the other.  I didn't get that far.  I did progress to ribbing, but that's about it.

Afterwards, I showed my swatch to Amy and said, "I probably didn't pick the best yarn for this."  (It's Lion Brand Scarfie.) She said, "Yeah, you were kind of mean to yourself, there, Becky."  Truth is, I'd planned on working on a hat using Cascade 220, but upon reflection, decided that knitting in the round probably wouldn't be the best way to learn a new technique.  The bad news is, that little swatch is all going to get ripped out.  I'm going to start over and knit an entire scarf in K2P2 rib, continental style.  By the time it's done, I ought to have it down pat.

One little tip Katie gave me was to stabilize my working yarn with the middle finger of my left hand, and kind of scoop the yarn off the pad of my finger, instead of trying to snag it out of thin air.  That had made all the difference.  I think I can do it now.  I'll keep you updated.

My Saturday class was Weaving on an Inkle Loom, taught by Roianna Buckmaster, of Buckmaster Family Farm.  

Her husband makes the looms himself, and we got to keep the one we picked out.  They're made of poplar, and left unfinished so we can stain or oil it however we want to.  She had hers finished with tung oil, and it was gorgeous.  If I can find the wax I had for my Ashford Sample-It loom, I'm going to use that, but if not, I'll stain it with some of the leftover stain from doing my bathroom door.  Or I may go with a lighter shade, I don't know, yet.

The first step she showed us is how to make heddles. For those of you who are weaving muggles, the heddles separate the warp yarn for the weft to pass through.

Once we'd tied those, she showed us how to warp our little looms.

This is Roianna helping one of my classmates with her heddles. 

That lady had a bit of a learning disability.  Roianna was very patient with her, and she eventually got the hang of things.  Warping the loom was the hard part, then the fun began.  The weaving.

Here is my little band I'm making.

After the class, I went down to her little booth and bought some extra yarn. 

She had so many pretty colors, it was hard to choose which ones to get.  These will be the warp.  For the weft, I'll just use a solid color from Wal-mart, or any craft store.  This isn't like rigid heddle looms in which the weft is part of the pattern.  In this kind of weaving, you don't even see it, so it doesn't really matter which color you use. 

Finally, here is the ubiquitous class picture.  I can't believe I spelled ubiquitous right the first time...

I'd tell you everyone's name, but alas, I can't remember them all.  But I remembered how to spell ubiquitous, so I'm counting that as a victory.

That's about it, since I only took two classes this time around.  The rest of my time was spent hanging with friends, knitting, and shopping.  It was so much fun, I already can't wait for next year.



*For those of you who may be knitting muggles, continental knitting is often referred to as picking, whereas English knitting is called throwing.