Vogue Knitting Live is a terrific showcase and provides inspiration from workshops to art, to new fibers, and new designs.
My knitting enthusiasm seems to have disappeared with the rain in California. I have plenty of projects to work on, but I lack motivation. Then I read about Vogue Knitting Live in the Knitter’s Review blog. I found the basic information on the website. I had work and church commitments that limited my time so I signed up for one afternoon workshop and planned my trip to Seattle so I could spend the afternoon learning to speed steek and then shop for a few hours in the Expo.
Steeking is a technique used in Nordic knitting where you knit in the round and then crochet a safety edge and then take scissors and CUT an opening in the yarn. When I was in Norway last summer I bought the yarn to make a Norwegian style sweater and thought this class would be both challenging and practical. I arrived in the nick of time to take my class from Ragga Eiricksdottir from Iceland. She did a great job explaining the properties of Lopi, the technique of steeking plus passing along tips. As we knit she shared some of her current projects, information on her wool cooperative in Iceland. She also explained how they bring the sheep down from the mountains at the end of summer and sort them by their ear tags to their proper owner to over winter.
I would LOVE to participate in sheep sorting in 2015. I added it to my travel wish list.
The expo included the usual booths with yarn shops and specialty items. It also offered “yarn tasting” with dozens of different fibers to touch and try out. Plus there was an outside aisle featuring many yarn artists.
I spun the “wheel of fortune” and kept landing on “spin again”. After about 7 spins I finally won a bag of yarn and a pattern book. Yeah!
I enjoyed so much about my trip to Seattle that even if Vogue Knitting Live had been a bust my trip would have been worthwhile. The one frustration was how far the event was from downtown Seattle, thus requiring me to rent a car. The Meydenbauer Center is in the suburbs surrounded by a sterile neighborhood.
Did my knitting mojo come back? Not exactly. I do not know whether it is my preoccupation with cycling that has dampened my enthusiasm, or just a slump. I am trying some advice I read to knit every day for 10 minutes regardless of how you feel. I am trying this and one benefit is that you steadily make progress.
I recommend checking out one of the Vogue Knitting Live events already scheduled: in Chicago in October and New York City in January, 2015.
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