Ohhh La-La -- Neatby!

I think it goes without saying, but I should probably say it -- I Love Lucy!

The "Phoenix from the Ashes" class that Lucy Neatby taught in Mahone Bay on the weekend was the best knitting information I have ever had! She is a fantastic teacher (uses her dvds in addition to personally interacting with the class and explaining what is happening in the video) -- her class is totally geared for any kind of learner (visual aids, hands on and even the written word!). Lexa gives a pretty thorough, step by step breakdown of what happened that day ... so I will just rave about the high points!

(this is J. and Lexa , making Happy Stitches!)


1. I have been doing the mattress stitch toally wrong for 5 years! I now want to mattress everything I see -- what a nice neat little cord it makes, the way she taught us. Love it!


2. When I am not mattress stitching ... I will be grafting everything I can .... another neat, easy invisible thing that I never understood until I had 3-hours of Lucy goodness.


3. I used to panic if I dropped a stitch or saw a mistake 10 rows back (or 2 rows from the start ... now I am eagerly looking to see if there is something I can "fix" (that might be an exageration -- but I am not scared to do the fix anymore! AND fixing doesn't have to mean ripping out miles of knitting to get to the root of the problem!)


4. I am soooo inspired and reved up about knitting now -- Lucy brought samples of what she has knit/designed. OMG -- it was a very humbling experience! The woman knits works of art! WOW! It was so cool to hear her talk about when she was making this one sweater, and thought it would be beautiful, until she put the pieces together and the patterns were horrid -- and the fix she did to it to make it such a stunner!

The woman is Brilliant! -- in every sense of the word: she is a totally intuative knitter, her love of colour and design is soo apparent, and she has such a genuine personality. I want to be Lucy Neatby when I grow up (oh, wait ... I am grown up!).

I wish we would have been signed up for both sessions -- I didn't think the second class sounded very exciting (sorry -- I did not know what I would be missing!)-- until I saw the samples she brought (then I was in deeep regret!) Ah, well -- I will know for the next time.

After the class, we went for lunch (fabulous! I had a chicken caesar salad - no cheesecake, though, as I am dieting) then yarn shopping (Check out the stuff I got -- couldn't leave without a Lucy Neatby dvd -- Socks 2), shoe shopping, and onto the Teazer to check out the giftware. (Curly tried to set up the shot for me -- I propped up the dvd, and went to get the yarn and other things, and when I came back --he was sitting on the goose, mucking about! Cute -- very much a playful kitten!)

This is a is the shot from the parking lot by the Teazer - Nice view, eh?

We even got a sock-convert from the class -- K. cast on her first sock in the car on the drive home, Edit -- and today -- Friday, May 18th, announced she was finished her first sock and had 3 rows on the cuff of the second sock at midnight last night!! Hurray!

Then back home, where, feeling the power of the needles, and wanting to make my stiches happy, I finished by nephews socks (pair #3 for the 52 Pair Plunge) ... Opal child's Sock pattern, knit in a mystery yarn - lost the ball band long ago - on 2.25 Pony Pearl needles. His mom loved them , and he got as excited as a 2.5 year old boy can get about socks (I might have gotten a better reaction from him if I had stuffed a Dinky car in each toe!). I gave him a t-shirt with a tractor on the front too, and boy! he was excited about that (thanks for the tip Sheri!) -- he is at the age where tractors are amazing!

Saturday evening around Midnight (when we got home from supper at my BIL's house) I cast on a pair of Broadripple socks for my MIL. Will show pictures tomorrow of them. I like Broadripple, it knits up fast, and gives a nice effect! These will be set aside for Christmas, I think.