A Weekend at the Lab

Lucky me - I got the best of all worlds when I was asked to teach a class on the Sunday of Interweave's Knitting Lab! At first I wondered whether I would have time to take a weekend away, but when I heard that Alice Starmore was coming, I couldn't say anything but YES! In the end, it worked out perfectly. I had the week to finish up my work, then I took the two hour drive down to San Mateo and arrived in time to catch the last three hours of the market on Saturday. I immediately went over to the Tactile booth to visit Maia. And who should be there but Clara Parkes?! She was fondling all the best yarns. :)

In fact, it was a quite a hopping and happening place over at Maia's! I finally got to meet the sweet Margeaux from TenTenKnits. Doesn't she have a great smile?

And then LoraJean from Knitted Wit came over to introduce herself and show me a gorgeous "Eliza's Wedding Shawl" from Rachael's fabulous third book. The yarn is this incredibly springy wonderful stuff. It made me want to cuddle up in it and never give the shawl back!

I was trying to pick out a nice color combination but there were two things hampering me: the poor lighting, and the fact that Maia had sold out of almost everything! Good lighting, though? I went in search of it. And who should I run into but Vicki wearing her gorgeous Kleio!

Then it was on to other booths. I petted the Kitten over at Tess Designer Yarns and it was the absolute softest thing ever in the world! I do love how elegant that booth always is, and the colors are wonderfully subtle.

I moved on through and made my way over to Brooke's booth: The Sincere Sheep. Just look at these colors! Can you believe those all come from natural dyes?

I spent a lot of time there! And then it was time to get in line for the Alice Starmore book signing. I tried to limit myself and had only brought six books. Yes - that is limiting myself. They would only allow two books at a time, so I stood in line three times. Hee. :)

I was truly bummed that I had forgotten to bring Tudor Roses, one of my favorites. But I did bring my old and new copies of Aran Knitting (here she is signing the old copy).

And I brought A Scottish Garland.

It was totally worth it! This is what the book signing table looked like with the line for Alice.

There were other fabulous authors there too! There was the incomparable Ann Budd.

I asked her to sign my dog-earred copies of her "Handy" books. She is amazing, and I am feeling very fortunate to be working on a secret project for her right now. I was so excited to finally meet her!

And there was Vivian Høxbro.

Look at the adorable picture she drew for me!

Annie Modesitt was sitting patiently swatching away on an amazing new design. I can't wait to see it in finished. Knitting Lab was the first time I actually got to meet her and sit down to chat with her for a moment. After the signing, I hooked up with Cookie A., who had been waiting patiently for me to finish making a fool of myself over Alice Starmore, and we went off to have dinner with Teva Durham (I met her at TNNA - she's terrific!), Faina Goberstein (another sweetie), and I finally got to meet Stefanie Japel! She is so fabulous. She has an amazing centered energy and I must take a class from her one of these days. Then we were off to hear Alice Starmore talk about her life. Swoon.

Next day was my class and I have to say that I had such a great time! They were very gentle with me. :) Here's everyone getting ready.

And a great mother/daughter combo in the front row!

Here's Judy in her gorgeous Kleio and Cinda, both with gorgeous smiles!

And here's Sheila who is designing her first shawl.

I asked them all to help me choose the colors for my next project out of the yarn Brooke gave me, and we had a hilarious time with the vote. Here's the winner:

and the runner up:

and the green!

Later on, when I laid out all of the skeins, the dark purple-grey fell against the silvery-grey and OMG. Just look at this!

I didn't want to break them up, so Brooke is sending me more! This one is going to be super-fantastic. :) It is all designed in my mind's eye.

After class (and after running into the gorgeous Meg Swansen - she is so incredibly elegant!), it was off to tea with Alice Starmore. Look! I can't believe I was actually so close to her!

She was with Karin Strom from Interweave and they were about to take a road trip up the Sonoma Coast!

Well, after that, it was back home for me. I didn't get much knitting done, but I did do a little on the sock yarn version of Cáliz (to be released very soon).

Whew. It was a happy whirlwind. :)