Spinning!

This weekend, I attended a two day machine knitting seminar!   My first!  I've been to hand knitting workshops and seminars, but I haven't really been part of a group on a regular basis (HK or MK) since moving back here almost 3 years ago.  I did go to a few meetings of the Whitby Hand knitting Guild, but it was hard getting out in the evening.  And last fall I did join the Kawartha Carriage Knitters Club.  One of the chief members is also in the various Yahoo MK groups, which is how I heard about it.  It's an hour away and meets once a month.  I can't get out every month, due to weather (I missed the recent April 23 meeting due to a snowstorm predicted).  The club was planning this seminar and I was very eager to go!

The instructor was Eileen Montgomery.  She's also in the same MK groups, and has published her own books as well as patterns in Knitwords magazines.  I knit one of those patterns!  And I recently made that grey scarf I showed here a few posts ago.  We've emailed back and forth, discussing patterns and ideas and cruises, but she's in the Hamilton area, and I'd never been able to go to the Cardiknits Academy.  Wow, we covered a lot of material!  Things that I've recently worked on on my own (still to show here), and many, many things I've never tried.

Prior to the seminar, I had been emailing Eileen about scarves, and thread lace, and asked if she had any partial cones of Yeoman Panama.  That project I linked to above was made in Panama and I had some left.  Not enough for another project.  Back then, I did purchase some more part cones from Cardiknits.com, though I still wasn't quite inspired enough.  Eileen came through with 4 more cones:

 My original cone is the tan one at the back right; the other three in the back row are the partial cones from Cardiknits.

 I've had my eye on a Knitwords pattern, but it's done in tuck, and although tuck can look cool in stripes, but I don't know if this many colours would look good in tuck (I don't need to use all the colours).  I now have 943gr, and the pattern won't use more than 500gr.  I have several t-shirts with horizontal stripes of several colours of various widths, and want the same ideal, so I might just keep it simple.  The best thing though, Eileen GAVE me the yarn!  GAVE!  She's happy to clear out partial cones, and I'm thrilled to have enough now to get started, and to not have raised my costs any, especially since I didn't get any sort of deal on the partial cones originally (she took the full price and pro-rated the partial cones based on that).   If you have any suggestions or tips, I'd love to hear them!

Eileen was coming with her friend, Pat, the owner of Cardiknits.  She said she'd bring orders to the seminar, so we didn't have to pay shipping.  She also didn't charge us tax, but I didn't know that until we were there; wish I had known earlier!  I ordered a cone of Yeoman Fifty-Fifty for a particular pattern.  It's not often I get to knit with the recommended yarn!  It's 350gr, 2500m, for $23.95.  It's a bright apple green.

These two cones were from the "sale table", they're both Forsell 2ply Pure New Wool, superwash; 250gr each, 2470yds, each were $10.  I'm not sure I'll use them together (they are quite close in tone, not much contrast, but they could look good together).

These are 4 balls of Merino Sport.  I had wanted more, like 5 balls of black, and some of blue and brown, so I can make mittens for selling.  However, it comes in 20 ball bags and I can't commit to that.  And, the gauge on the ball isn't sport--says 20st/22rows, 4-4.5mm needles.  That's worsted to me.  It might be too thick for my original plan.  These were $8.70 each, though that's not what was in her original email to me :(  So, I'm still searching for a source of superwash DK wool.

I didn't purchase any of Eileen's books, I wish I could have but I'm on such a limited budget.  I did win a Navajo style blanket and a little desk caddy though!

I'm still processing the material we went over this weekend.  So much knowledge!  I already had a long list of projects I want to get to, and now, there's more!!!  Totally worth it!!

Yarn In:  10 905gr + 1469gr = 12 374gr

Yarn Out:  10 334gr

Balance:  2040gr more yarn In than Out

Costs:  $192.71 + $80.75 = $273.46/130 days = $2.10/day