World Wide Knit in Public day spans a couple of weekends (rather than a single day) – and the Snohomish Knitters Guild (SKG) hosted a knit-in at Seattle Center. Saturday,18 June 2011, was the most dismal greeeeeey rainy day I’ve seen in the Northwest (honestly) – but it did not keep knitters from the mission of sharing the joy of knitting. Thirty + folks showed up, took their spots and shared their love of knitting with the public. Prior to the event, I polled the guild members about why they knit, then made placards so we could put them in front of us. It generated lots of conversation with the public! We also shared about 50 “new knitter kits” with the publich – each kit had info about the guild, knitter resources, and a partial skein of yarn.
These were our two youngest knitters – 8 years old. They knit for noble reasons.
And then, there are those of us that knit for less than truly noble reasons…
Also at the WWKIP event, this cartoon says:”So, are we gonna go fight crime or what” and the hero replies, “Yep, just let me finish this row.” Sound familiar?
Someone who spotted us knitting (we were hard to miss) sat down and demonstrated a couple of techniques using the Eastern European method of knitting:
Knit on Cast-on
Brioche Rib using Eastern European Knit Method, or “Combination Method” (illustrated by Annie Modesitt here.)
Also in June, Yarnbomber and artist Suzanne Tidwell (and helpers, such as our own Knit Shan Knit of SKG) socked-it-to Occidental Park in Pioneer Square in Seattle. I heard that she is taking her act uptown too. Check out both Suzanne and Shan’s links.
That’s me, soaking up all that yarny color goodness.
And finally, lest you think that I’ve not had my hands on some of that lovely yarny goodness, I have a very small show and tell – a woven scarf (oh my, that unevenness is just charming, isn’t it?) A simple tabby weave on my rigid heddle loom, hand-dyed brown wool for the warp, sockyarn for the weft.
The sock yarn is washable wool, and the weft is not, so when I set it, it gave the scarf an interesting texture. Something to celebrate, a scarf off the loom and on a body!
On the home front, my son had a hero’s journey this summer – he rode his bicycle from Seattle to Boston, alone. As I know he is unconventional as far as cyclists go, I was a bit over the top in worry – but now that he has arrived, I would love for you to enjoy his adventure (after the fact, rather than biting your nails at 4am every morning like I was to see if he was still alive.) Read Brandon’s travel blog: Brandon has died of dysentery. Click the “back” link at the bottom of each entry. It’s a fast read, he posted almost daily for about 40 days. I’ll leave you with the ending entry, so you, dear reader, know he is ok:
The caption on this blog entry was “Done.” (He starts grad school at MIT, Media Lab on 1 Sept.)
I hope you have had a wonderful summer, enjoyed many excursions, much yarny goodness and are thinking about your Fall projects!