Which-Crafts?

So stitches was this week, not only did I survive, but I had a great time and met some cool new people and visited with some friends and spent a lot of money on yarn and spinning fiber. (whew! what a sentence) In more detail:

I had three classes this weekend - Japanese Short Rows, Toe up Socks Your Way!, and Spinning for Knitting.  Overall I got a lot out of all three classes, and I don’t regret taking any of them no matter what else I say below.
Sussana Hansson who taught the Japanese short row class was excellent.  She was well prepared, and the time alotted for the class was perfect.  I can see this short row technique being useful in many many projects (shoulders, boobs, heels, shaping etc.) but I am very very glad that I have the hand-out as It will take quite a few repeats before I have it down pat.  Also the Sussana taught us a great bind off technique to use instead of a 3 needle bind off - I really liked the result, especially for a weight-bearing seam like a shoulder.
My 2nd two classes were talk by Merike Saarniit, I had the Toe up Socks class in the morning and spinning in the afternoon.  It was interesting because after the morning class I was kind of dreading the afternoon class, but the spinning class turned out much smoother than the sock class did.

Let me be clear, I don’t think that in most cases Merike was the problem.  The morning sock class should have been longer and or had less people in it - I think that the drive to get the class in the 3 hour slot made it rushed for a lot of the people in the class and I don’t Merike had time to get around to all of the people in the class and help them, and still keep the schedule she needed to get the materials taught in class.   And I think Merike feeling the pressure to keep everyone moving didn’t handle the straglers all that well.  Also there was some assumed techniques that no explanations were given for.  It was assumed that everyone knew an “E-loop” cast on (apparently many people learn to knit with it) but I never did, and I ended up having to rip out and restart after not casting-on correctly.  Also there were quite a few sub-techniques that it was assumed people had a handle on, and the people who didn’t have a handle on those skills seemed to founder.  Short rows for turning the heel seemed to cause the most problems - but also increasing and decreasing and picking up stitches from odd locations.  After my initial cast-on snafu, I did fine - but at least 2 women in my row and one in the row in-front of me, just gave up and sat through the rest of the class not knitting at all, and one of the women in the row with me, was 3 steps behind most of the way and constantly needing help from the nearbye people who had caught on. I could feel the frustration of many of the women around me, which made me uncomfortable. But between what I learned in class and what is in her handout I think *I* am well prepared to design my own Toe Up sock - so the class was very sucessful for me.

With all of the problems I had with the way the sock class went, I was a little leary of the spinning class in the afternoon - but I really wanted the class so I steeled myself to going.  The afternoon class was a dream and a lot of fun.  It wasn’t exactly what I had thought it was going to be, and as such had some redundant material (more beginning spinning, than how to design yarn)  As a spinning teacher, she was very well organized and had the right amount of material for the class.  She is obviously very enthusiastic and loved teaching the class, and it showed.  I already know how to spin, but she was able to explain a few things that I had been confused about and had considered Voo-doo up until now.  And she was able to answer a few questions that I have had, and or developed between what I already knew and what she was teaching. (BTW - this was the class that Franklin was in, I managed to introduce myself without fangirling all over the place, and he was really nice)

Coming up later:  Yarn Crack  - a.ka. What Alyse bought - maybe even with pictures.

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