Night of Knitting

Last night, I got to go to Twisted and see Fiona Ellis. She gave an excellent lecture and left lots of time for questions and discussion. She brought some of her sweaters with her. It was so fun to see professionally made hand knits and learn some more about construction and design inspiration. I even got to show her my Celtic Icon sweater that I am making from her book. That was cool! To talk to the actual designer of the pattern and learn how to make it better! :-D I purchased her knitting journal, as my old one is getting a bit full. She signed it, too. :-D

It was really an exciting evening. Fiona encouraged me to continue to design and to contact more companies to sell my designs. I left feeling quite inspired (which seems to have been the purpose of the lecture :-D)--as DH can attest to, as I came home and talked to him about it for a good long while.

So at the moment, I am working on one sleeve of the Celtic Icon sweater, another set of wedding present washcloths, and a pair of socks I am designing. I am learning the Magic Loop method with these socks. I think I like it. I am working one at a time right now, but I think I will try to do both at once later today. I've done 2 at a time with the "double knitting" method (one sock inside the other on dpns), and I like it, but I just feel so slow doing it that way. I want to be able to work 2 socks at once quickly, with a minimum of focus; and I'm not inclined to the two circular method as I don't want to have to buy 2 circular needles. I have single circs, and dpns, so I figure I don't need to spend more money on duplicate circs. :-)

I know I haven't said a lot about the kids recently, but be assured that they are doing well; and keeping their mama very very busy. I pulled the model horses down from the closet earlier this week, and that seems to be occupying a very large chunk of their time. It is amazing to me how much DD loves animals. I wish we weren't so allergic--I think if we weren't, we would have a menagerie in our home (if we could afford it!). I know I would want sheep (can you guess why?) and the kids want dogs and cats, horses and goats. And just about every other animal they see that looks slightly safe and cuddly. Oh well. That's a good excuse to go to Grandpa and Grandma's, right? :-)