Well-- its beyond a week since I went to the Nordic Knitting conference in Seattle and I don't have photos. So apologies up front for that. I had a wonderful time. The teachers were excellent and the people were very nice and the sweaters everyone was wearing were gorgeous.
The first day, I took a class from Carol Rhoades that covered the knitting of Marta Stina, who lived in Sweden over a hundred years ago. She worked large pieces (coverlets) in two-color work as well as sweaters. The technique she used is what we worked on in class, and involves twisting the yarn every stitch to create a really tight fabric. The good news is there are no floats. The bad news is that trying to keep the tension that is required going is harder on my hands. Beautiful pieces though.
I also took a class in color from Vivian Hoxbro which was a very different approach than the one I took at TKGA with Laura Bryant. Both were good exercises in thinking about color. In Vivian's class we also worked in stripes for our swatches, but the effect was not to blend so much. More graphic, less painterly. The last swatch of the day was done for whomever was sitting next to us. You were supposed to make a swatch that you thought that person would like. Then we exchanged them and that was really fun.
The final class I took was also Vivian's, this time in white. The topic was the Night Shirt from Falster. They knit the knit shirts in white and then dyed them. The patterning here reminded me of some of the ganseys. Mostly knit/purl patterning. Lots of stars (keeps away the evil-doers). Some twisted stitches (a la Bavarian Twisted stitch).
All in all a great time. The food was good, the coffee was plentiful (THANKS to the Nordic Heritage Museum Volunteers!!!!) I'm looking forward to the next conference, which I hope takes place in 2009.
Dawn's Projects. Retired IBM database techie and current owner, Fiber Rhythm Craft & Design. Love to figure out new techniques in knitting and machine knitting. Learning more about weaving. Re-exploring many of the crafts of the 70s with the new wave.
2 comments :
I visited the Nordic Heritage Museum during the conference, unfortunately I was not a participant. I have the pattern for Ulrika Bos Kertuu's mittens but I am not familiar with Marta Stina's knitting technique. The magazine gives a brief description but I would like to know if there are any books illustrating the technique. Thanks for any help.
I am not aware of any books on the subject. I just looked for my handouts from class and didn't find them right away. I will look some more and see what I can find.
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