Stitches East Part One

First I wanted to show you why you should come to New England in October! This is the view from my deck right now. I love days like this. It's so pretty.

I went to Stitches East this past Thursday and Friday in Hartford,CT. I went with my friend Nancy and we took a class called Cable Variations taught by Melissa Leapman. I thought it was an awesome class! I certainly have done cables before, so that wasn't new, but what I did learn was how to combine other techniques with cables and how I might use them in a project.

Here are a few examples.......

In this swatch we pretended that we were knitting a v-neck sweater with a center design that carries around the neck line. Notice the "full fashion shaping" that pulls the design to the left and right. I also dropped my yarn at the center line and then continued the patterning by attaching a new ball of yarn and continuing across the row. Also one side of each cable cross is lace.
This was a funky one for me. It's not a great picture, but I think you'll be able to get the gist of it. It starts with stockinette and adds a lace design that grows toward the center. I then did a cable cross with the lace, then 2 crosses in the other direction above that, then a single cross in the first direction above that. Then continue with the lace design in a mirror image from below the knot that was created with all the cables. It really pulls the center in so I think the best way to use something like this would be on a tank just below the bust. It has enough pull that I think it could be used as shaping.
This one was fun. It's elongated stitches. You wrap on the knit side and cable/drop on the purl side. Melissa showed us a sample that she made for one of her books using this stitch and ribbon yarn. It was very pretty.
This last one was the most challenging for me, but it is a cool effect! I only completed this one cross which uses 8 stitches total, but we also talked about other options for crossing columns of colors, including one using 6 stitches where the center 2 essentially are an axis that the outside stitches cross over. I can see throw pillows for the couch in my future using this technique.

I also went to a lecture by Anna Zilboorg on her new book Magnificent Mittens and Socks. It wasn't quite what I expected it to be, but her mittens and socks certainly are beautiful.

I also did some shopping but I'll show you that in the next post!