Last week I had the pleasure of hearing Franklin Habit speak at
The Loopy Ewe's Spring Fling. Nope, I wasn't a Flinger (how do you join that club?) and though I sat about 10 feet from Franklin which gave me plenty of time to contemplate whether hipster garb would work for me (I think not), I did not see the Yarn Harlot, my hero. I saw evidence in photographs that she was around, but I did not find her. I am pleased to say that Franklin was an excellent substitute.
Franklin was wonderful in fact. His talk was about antique knitting patterns. He promised at the beginning that he would get us interested in this particular rabbit hole of knitting lore and he almost succeeded in my case.
I did go home and buy his book,
It Itches. It is a hilarious collection of cartoons and thoughts about knitting and definitely worth a read.
And he finished off with a lovely night cap pattern. What an enchanting evening, complete with pocket watch.
Fast forward to last weekend...
Saturdays are a good time to run errands--especially when your errands include two yarn stores, one of which is having a fleece day.
Somehow I wasn't surprised when I pulled into the parking lot of
The Recycled Lamb and heard a bagpipe. Bagpipes mean Scotland and Scotland means sheep and well, there weren't any sheep on the lawn of the shop, but there were goats and alpaca and plenty of sheep fleeces.
I drove down for the fleece day to find fiber for a project I want to do this summer. Alas, I have been spoiled by
Maggie Casey and the fleeces she gets from
Sheep Feather's Farm. Nothing I saw could compare and I'm going to have to somehow bribe either Maggie or the owner of the farm, Robin Phillips for one of those gorgeous corriedale fleeces.
The Lamb has many classrooms and they always have classes going on. This one was ready for a spinning class. I bumped into the knitting teacher from my
two-at-a-time-toe-up sock class a few months ago and was happy to be able to say that I am just finishing the ribbing of my first pair of socks knit this way.
And the Lamb still had a few of Sarah Swett's
How to Weave a Bag on a Box. If you can't get one from them, you can get them
HERE. You're welcome.
Yarn-y things.
You are very lucky, Rebecca, to be living in a place that seems to have something fiberery going on every weekend (or so it seems). I have been knitting my socks, 2-at-a-time on one circular since 2009. Don't you just love getting them both done at the same time and also having them match in size?
ReplyDeleteI am lucky Michele. I thought leaving Santa Fe, I would be leaving all the fiber behind. But that was definitely not true. The front range of Colorado is a mecca for fiber stuff. I live in a town with FOUR yarn shops and they all seem to be doing well (I think the population of Fort Collins is somewhere around 150,000 right now). I finished the toe-up socks for real last night. I'll have to blog about that one. They turned out too big, but I knew they would be. I'm calling them slippers and moving on. :-) It was so fun to be able to use every last bit of yarn.
DeleteAnother great blog post, Rebecca. And I have a special place for Franklin Habit in my heart...I taught myself to knit about 10 years ago and didn't know too many other knitters. Somehow I "found" Franklin's blog online and always looked forward to his witty posts and was inspired by all of the amazing projects he was working on. My daughter went to college in Chicago and when I would visit her I even made visits to the yarn store he mentioned in hopes that I would spot him. I would ask people that worked at the store was he was "really like" and they always confirmed he was a great guy - and fabulous knitter. Anyway, life moved on - and more and more blogs about knitting appeared and I drifted away from Franklin. So, all this to say that I am so glad that he has been spotted very much alive and well - and still speaking on vintage - and often obscure knitting patterns. I need to go take a look at Panopticon right this minute.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read the Panopticon yet, but sounds like I should. Judging by his book, It Itches, I definitely should. What a marvelous book it is. He was a lot of fun. Who couldn't love someone who wears a pocket watch (maybe I get that from my father who also has a pocket watch though he doesn't wear it in a vest pocket). It does look like he hasn't updated that blog in over a year so I suspect he isn't writing it any more.
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