A Fabulous Four Days of Knitting with Lucy Neatby

This past week I spent 4 days in the company of the very adventurous and inventive knitter, Lucy Neatby.  This series of workshops was part of her broader "tour of British Columbia" that I've been involved in planning for the last 3 years (since her previous visit).  It almost didn't happen--at the last minute, there was an emergency at home in Nova Scotia, but fortunately for all of us the crisis was averted.  (See Lucy's blogpost for details.)

The setting was the wonderful Okanagan Centre Hall in Lake Country, about halfway between Vernon and Kelowna, on the shore of Okanagan Lake.

This is a former Anglican church, now beautifully restored as the community hall.

The weather was perfect, from driving south from Vernon just after sunrise, to taking a walk along the lake at noon.
Inside about 20 knitters learned new tricks and techniques from a master.

At the end of the colour class, the yarns in my bag had been in a party--all tangled up!  

I was bitten by the double knitting bug.  I had dabbled in this before, but it hadn't "taken".  Now it has, and I've started a simple scarf using leftover sock yarns to develop some skill.  Both sides of the fabric are "right" but mirror images.  I'm experimenting with a chequerboard pattern to get used to manipulating two yarns, one in each hand, knitting the "near" stitch with one and purling the "far" stitch with the other. So far, so good!

My selection of yarns--odd balls of "printed" sock yarns on the left, and odd balls of more homogenous and darker yarns on the right.

Side one

Side two

On the last day, I wore the cardigan I'd knit from Lucy's pattern Venus Rising using the Kauni yarn specified in the pattern (haven't knit someone else's pattern in the specified yarn ever!), even the same colourway, mainly because I had a couple balls leftover from knitting a sweater for Lloyd.  Here are Lucy and I in the same but different sweater...

Happy stitches...