Fiber Festival in New England

A few weeks ago, I had the good fortune to be in The Berkshires in western Massachusetts at the beginning of the Fall Foliage season.  What a wonderful sight to see the changing color of the leaves and revisit the charming little New England villages.

                                                                                   
 I also got to attend the Franklin County Fiber Twist held in Deerfield, Mass.  This is a county show put on to display the talent of local fiber artists.  There were spinners, knitters, rug hooking and felting artists.

                                                                         
The show was held on the grounds of the Yankee Candle headquarters and it was very colorful.

 

 

Rug Hooking was a big part of this event and there were some beautiful rugs on display

There were instructors demonstrating the art of rug hooking

These instructors made rug hooking look so easy and the colorwork was wonderful - perhaps a new hobby?

More later!

                                                                                 


                                                                      
                                                                                    

Summer Knitting

Summer stretches out before you, and you think of all the time you are going to have to work on knitting projects: a cotton summer sweater for myself, a shawl for my daughter, finishing a sweater for my grandaughter for the Fall, a sweater for my grandson for school, a baby sweater for my new grandson, Forest. It all seems rather ambitious now, but I did manage to finish a few of these things and I'm close to finishing a few more.
This is my cotton sweater from Knitty in 2008 called, Hey Teach.  I don't do alot of lace knitting and I had real misgivings as to how this would come out, but I am pretty pleased with the outcome.

I also finished a shawl for my daughter called The Nina Shawl from Mason Dixon Knitting. I saw this model at The Lamb Shoppe in Denver and liked their choice of colors.  It has a real southwest flair and my daughter got to try it on and loved it. This was made using Brown Sheep's Cotton Fleece.

Now it's on to Fall knitting and those other projects still waiting, but couldn't resist starting a winter project for myself.  This is called Foliage from Nashua Handknits and the yarn is an alpaca, wool combination called Snowbird.

The Knitmore Girls Podcast

Congratulations to Gigi and Jasmine on the 100th podcast of The Knitmore Girls!  Their podcast originates from the Bay Area and they always have some interesting news about what is going on in the knitting world in Northern California.  They also manage to fit in quite a bit of traveling and I enjoy their reports from Rhinebeck, Stitches, Maryland Sheep and Wool, etc. Their podcasts  include some interesting and informative segments, such as "When Knitting Attacks" - a segment on knitting disasters and how to deal with them, to book and yarn reviews.  They have developed quite a following and I wish them success with their next 100 podcasts!

     

Here is a picture of my Nina Shawl from Mason Dixon Knitting which has turned out  to be an easy, quick project using Brown Sheep's Cotton Fleece.  When the body is finished, you pick up stitches on each end and knit a 2 inch ruffle.  And the best thing is this will actually be done for the season it is intended for!

                                                                                                                                                
This was such a breeze, I would like to try it again in pastel colors.....  perhaps some yarn from my stash?