Scenes from Stitches Chicago Day 1

I am at another Yarn convention! This one is the well-known STITCHES put on by the company that produces KNITTERS' magazine, and employs many of their designers to teach classes and workshops in knitting, crochet and weaving.

I especially wanted to come this year because the Opening Day presentation was given by Candace Strick, a well-known knit designer who has recently published a book on knitted skirts. I bought the book as soon as it came out and there are over 20 designs for beautiful and unusual skirts. As you have probably guessed, my skirt in the above picture is from her book and is called the "Mondrian skirt" as it is based on the famous painting by that artist.

In her talk, Candace made the point that many women think they will not look good in a knitted skirt, but if made to fit correctly they can be very flattering to all shapes of women. Here are some pictures of skirts on people in the audience and on her models and I think you will agree they all look great.

And here is one of Candace herself and the model she made of the skirt I chose.

Here are some additional pictures of great looking knitted items I saw on people:

Scenes from the Crochet Convention

I have been in Charleston, SC for the last few days at the National Crochet Guild  convention. Crochet has come a long way from the dowdy image it had formerly, and I hope these pics of some of the wonderful designs I saw will attest to that.

I love crochet for warm weather wearables. It usually has lots of holes for coolness and lends itself to natural yarns such as cotton, linen, silk, bamboo and rayon...all good fibers for the summer. The above top is made with a rayon/nylon yarn which gives it a bit of shine. The other items I crocheted to  wear at the convention are at the end of this post.....a dress and a top that is knitted on the front and crocheted on the back (you can probably guess which side was more popular here!)

The theme of the convention was the pineapple, which is also a symbol of welcome in S Carolina. There is a crochet motif called the pineapple which you can see in the purple shawl and one of the emcees at the fashion show had actually crocheted herself a "pineapple dress"!

I hope to be back next month with scenes from a KNITTING show.....my needles are already flying to have some special things to wear to that!

Knitting took over!

I have been absent from the blogging world since my flurry of sewing last summer. Thanks to you that have asked what happened!

Well, I joined a group on Ravelry.com (THE website for knitters and crocheters) that took the challenge to make 12 new sweaters this year. I met my goal just today when I finished my 12th item--

This first picture which is a sweater dress I planned to wear to a New Year's dinner tonight.

Here are all 12 of this year's projects, mostly knitted with some crochet and other techniques. In most cases I did sew the outfits to go with each new sweater. This was such a fun yearlong project that I plan to take the same challenge in 2016, maybe even going to the next level of completing 16 projects. I Will be starting my first project after midnight! Happy New Year and hope to be showing you my knitting this year (and probably some sewing too)