Showing posts with label knitting socks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label knitting socks. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Okanagan Knitting Retreat...optional Friday workshops

New this year is a day of workshops prior to the retreat. Paulette Lane (of PLANE Images) will be leading "It's all in the details", a reprise of a workshop from the retreat of 2009. The orange eyelet strip is a photo of an eyelet cast-on
which is a great way of starting a feather and fan pattern

Next is the Punta cast-on which comes to us from Peru. Another great way of casting on!
And finally, a picot cast-off with a garter stitch edge. All of these treatments are applicable to garments, whether it be a sweater, socks, vest or....

It's the details which can catapult a garment from the "home made with loving hands" category to the "designer" category! Simply changing a pattern from a ribbing to one of these edges and you've become a designer. Join us at the 13th annual Okanagan Knitting Retreat--download the brochure on my website at http://www.janetarmstrong.com/


Monday, June 7, 2010

We have arrived in Iceland

We landed in Iceland about three hours ago. The flight across the north Atlantic was beautiful. I had a window seat and enjoyed the night skies...the sun was setting as we left Toronto and very quickly there was a sunset that stretched across the sky in stripes of orange, yellow, pale blue and deep blue. This lasted about an hour and then it was pitch black for about an hour, followed by a sunrise which was very similar in colour, lasting only about half an hour before the sun popped up above the clouds.

I have a new sock knitting project with me--some toe up socks from Lucy Neatby´s Cool Socks, Warm Feet book--so I cast on somewhere over the Atlantic. I happily knit my way to Iceland.

The landscape around the Keflavik Airport (the international airport for Reykjavik) is bleak and beautiful...lots of rock and carpets of purple lupins. Every now and then were stone assemblages, almost statues--stacks of big and small boulders which looked very human...

We arrived at the Sunna Guesthouse at about 8 AM. They were fully booked last night and so our room won´t be ready for a while. Meanwhile we were able to have some breakfast...our first "Skyr" which is a low fat yogurt and delicious with granola and fruit. There was an array of breads, cheese, ham, hard boiled eggs, and fresh fruit as well. Lloyd has now dashed off to the University to attend the opening session of his conference, and I´m waiting here in Reception with the bags. Which is why I´m using the time to write on the computer available for guest use. The weather is typically marine--low cloud and mild. It just might burn off later. I really would prefer to be crawling into bed right about now, but might have to go for a walk instead!

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Knitting in India...

Wendy and I often relaxed in this fashion at the end of the day...here we are on the patio of our hotel near the Ramthambore tiger reserve. We're both knitting socks--Wendy has two socks going on one long circular needle, while I am knitting Entrelac socks in the more usual way with double pointed needles--and sharing a 1 litre bottle of Kingfisher beer. Our preferred beverage would have been white wine, but that was hard to find in India!

Other places we knit included (1) on the train to Delhi, (2) standing in line waiting for the Ahmedabad Calico Museum to open, and (3) occasionally in the car. We didn't see any other knitters on our travels--this might be something that people would do further north where it's not quite so hot.