Today I walked for an hour on the treadmill, and I couldn’t have made it without Lucy Neatby.  Boy, walking on the treadmill is boring.  But I finished “My First Sock”, which made the time pass quite easily.  Lucy covered picking up stitches, and how to tighten the picked up row.  She also had a neat trick for dividing the top and bottom of the foot, for toe shaping.  Lucy spends some time preparing, which saves time when actually doing something.  I completely agree with this philosophy, so of course I think all of these tips are brilliant :).  For toe finishing, she teaches her classic Sock Chimney technique.  I don’t use this, myself, because I just do kitchener off the needle.  However, for really learning to graft and read your stitches, the Sock Chimney technique absolutely cannot be beat.  It was good for me to have a refresher.

In finishing, Lucy covers how to deal with the gaps and holes that are always going to occur with sock knitting.  I agree with her that knitters worry too much about these things, and that it is preferable to fix them in finishing, than to torture your stitches while creating the fabric.  And, I was really happy to see that her technique for darning in the ends is basically what I do to bury them.  It isn’t as easy without the links we get with intarsia.  However, it still works with ribbing on the inside of a cuff, very well.

As a knitting teacher, watching Lucy teach is intimidating.  I’ll bet this is what actresses feel like when they watch Meryl Streep.  She was a great teacher when I took classes from her 20 years ago, and she has only improved with time.  There is a lot of great material in this class, and every knitter and/or knitting teacher will find a wealth of information here.  I’m glad I took the time to check it out.

On the knitting front, the “Rock Island Shawl” has progressed from the “cat barf” stage to the “soft like a bunny” stage, after picking up the stitches from the edging and proceeding to the body.  Although the chart for the body looks complicated, it is actually much easier for me to knit than the edging was.  I’m having a very good time, now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mary C., a student at Village Yarn and Fiber recently, sent me a photo of her grandson, Owen, wearing an intarsia sweater that she knit for him.  She gave me permission to share it with you, and I hope it brightens your day, as it did mine.  This is what knitters live for!