You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June, 2007.
I have been busy this week–I have finished another pattern that’s been lurking around the house. This pattern was in Interweave Knits in 2004 (Fall or Winter) and finally I will have it available very soon. Those mittens were so fun to design and knit!
AND, I sent a chapter off yesterday to my dear editor, Deb Robson! I am feeling accomplished. : ) I am trying to keep up the momentum. I hope you also are having a productive week.
I haven’t posted for awhile because I was very busy preparing for my class I taught at Camp Stitches last week. It was held at Asilomar, a lovely venue, right on the ocean near Monterey, California. It was a relief to be in 65 plus degrees weather with no humidity after Maryland’s upper 80s and 90s with crushing humidity.
The Lusekofte is a sweater from the 1800s that was worn by the men and boys in the Setesdal Valley in south central Norway. It has never lost its popularity and now just about everyone wears them in Norway.
One interesting part of this sweater is that fabric was applied to the cuffs and front panel, and the collar if the sweater had one. These were embroidered–sometimes elaborately, sometimes very simply. Annemor Sunbø stayed at my house a few times and taught me the “antikk” embroidery. You can check out her book on the Lusekofter (plural for Lusekofte)
There is a lot of sewing in this class and I brought my little Featherweight sewing machine along. (You can see it on the back table.) The knitting part is fairly straight-forward. The hand embroidery and the assembly of the sweater are what take so long.
I taught the Norwegian Setesdal Lusekofte for three days. Everyone worked so hard and I am so proud of my class and the sweet sweaters everyone made. Lambchops was especially pleased with her new sweater!
It was a wonderful experience, being with a smaller group of students and staying with them for 3 days. I really prefer that so I can get to know the knitters. I am hoping I can go back to Asilomar next year to teach. It will be held September 11-15.
Beautiful Pittsburgh. It is hard to imagine what Pittsburgh was like 50 years ago with the steel mills belching pollution into the air. It is so different now. When I visited last weekend, Pittsburgh looked to me like a mini-city (compared to Baltimore) nestled in among the mountains with quaint Victorian homes and cute little shops.
I found the Three Rivers Knitting guild to be especially warm and loving. I taught the Gansey class over the weekend and here are the participants, proudly showing their progress. (Hmm, someone seems to be finished knitting their sampler in that picture–no wait! That’s MY little gansey!)
