December 15, 2003
Soiree Satisfaction
It was the perfect Saturday for the Seventh Soiree. From the state's capitol 70 miles south of Happy Holler came Denise with her beautiful Jensen Tina II wheel and her charming self. From Marysville (named after my great great Aunt?) 70 miles to the north came Tami with her sparkling eyes and funny tales of her own Nanny Granny.
And in between those two bounding points were the points of origin for the rest of the gang. Ryan always puts a spark of fun into every gathering she attends, and this one was no different. This time she was working on a design for a lacey sock for her lucky sister in San Diego. She was also working on the Perfect Sweater, which soon showed its true colors as the Perfect Dog Rug.
The ingenious Felina Schwartz, claiming to have only recently started two-color stranded knitting, worked up a design of her own, a hat featuring (of course) black cats. It is a well-known fact that Felina only knits black cats. But before this week, she never knit in more than one color, so it was difficult to see the black cats on a black background. This is truly a turning point in history.
Perhaps having heard of Felina's prolific cat-knitting, the very talented Katie Swanson appeared wearing a vest of her own design featuring, of all things, black cats! Katie won the GOA award (Gasps Of Admiration) for this soiree. I had asked her to bring some show and tell, and she brought two other designs of her own, one a vest and another pullover, both stunning and beautifully knit. She had also knit the once-ubiquitous donkey-brown-taupe Fleet into the Sheilavig vest. Here she is taking Denise's Tina for a spin.
Denise and I had a shootout with our cameras. I suffered only mild redeye, but look at the damage done to Denise's lovely face!
When the door was closed on the last guest, the Parlor was still ringing with their laughter, infused with their inspiration and buzzing with their positive love for knitting.
I picked up my Unst stole yesterday after a couple of months of neglect and knit another half of the center repeat. My next "completion point" on this is the finished center. With all this inspiration, I think it will go quickly!
Wish I could have been there - sounds like it was mostly a different cast of characters from the one I attended, I could have met yet more PNW fiber fanatics. Next year...
Posted by: Prudence on December 15, 2003 11:43 AMOH PS KATIE I would KILL to have the pattern for that cat vest. Will you be publishing it someplace, anyplace? A magazine? A paper napkin? I love it!!
Posted by: Prudence on December 15, 2003 11:44 AMLove the projects people brought for show n tell! Wish I lived closer than *allll* the way across the country! Sounds like such fun! One thing struck me as strange, tho - pic of the dog, and in the same pic (lovely dog bed, btw) is what appears to be a coffee table with food on it. How does that happen? If we put food on anything less than waist height in this house, it's gone in an instant, whether we're watching it or not (makes for less clean-up of kids' leftovers, tho)
Posted by: Caroline in NH on December 15, 2003 03:12 PMWhat fun, and such lovely knits! Wish I could've been there.
Posted by: Linette on December 15, 2003 03:40 PMCaroline, as someone who was at the Soiree, I am here to testify that what you see is true, all true! Sheila did not hastily "doctor up" the photo and put the food back in to make Sherlock look good. The whole time we were there, except for one moment when Sherlock's nose went up a liiiittle higher than it should have food-wise, he was a perfect gentleman. And the cats, too! (Except for when Ginger was outside and was hidden by Sheila's new floor-length curtains and started to beat insanely on the sliding glass door and scared the crap out of me).
As for the dog bed, it's actually the back of a sweater (see the white needles from my Denise Interchangeable Needle set sticking out on each side?). But it's made out of Wool-Ease Thick & Quick so apparently Sherlock knows cozy and squooshy when he sees it!
Posted by: Ryan on December 15, 2003 03:41 PMNo way Ms Schwartz, those black cats surely cannot be your first effort at "more than one colour knitting". Can they? J
Just too gorgeous M'am!!
Ooh you are all "lucky duckies" being surrounded by all that talent!
Posted by: Dot on December 15, 2003 09:27 PMis katie's vest shown on meg swansen's fair isle vest video? it's lovely! so is the swatch, such creativity, and sheila, please a full report on the tina II, it's on my short list :-)
Posted by: vanessa on December 16, 2003 03:24 AMDot, you are so kind. I did make a tiny doll sweater and hat some time ago; but was irritated, by some accomplished and affable knitters, into trying a person-sized garment. This knitting is nothing but a needling aggravation... makes me just want to hiss and spit.
Oh, by the way, I didn't want to be blemished by having a "wart", so I excised the "t" from my name years ago. The family has never forgiven me, but it's my little bit of vanity.
What lovely projects? Seems like the Soiree went swimmingly, wish I could have been there.
Posted by: Angela on December 17, 2003 10:28 AMThanks Sheila for having us all over for a lovely afternoon! I tried the Jensen Tina II and Sheila's Kromski wheel, but being such a novice I can only say I managed to not make a complete bird's nest of their yarn! I think! I believe the cat vest may be on Meg's video... it has been a while since I watched it... she borrowed a couple of my things for that video. I would be happy to send the chart if'n you want to figure it out - I used Rowan Silkstones and Grainy Silks for the original, so colors and gauge will be different for Shetland 2-ply or whatever.
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