Already It Is Day 2

Day 2 arrived as early as the first day...another 5:30 AM wake up call from the chirping birds. A little knitting to start the morning as I waited on B to get up so we could head off for the day's classes. I don't often get the chance to knit first thing in the morning, but I find it a wonderful way to start my day. The weather was terrific...sitting on the deck with the cool air was a big change from last week's heat.

After breakfast I started my morning off with Cornelia's Herringbone class and B went off for Annie's Cocoon Shrug class. Thankfully, I had heard we had to do some knitting homework for the class and had gotten it done the night before at the "pajama party". Good thing a few of us had worked it through ahead of time because we were able to have a good laugh as others caught up to the 'count error' in the pattern. Cornelia laughed along with us as we talked about how errors occur on patterns & what we should do about them...afterall "knitting is not rocket science." The pattern is very interesting and I find it addictive. Once I had it in the brain I didn't want to stop. I find myself saying just one more block...just one more block...One. More. Block. It won't take long to get the shawl/scarf done at the pace I'm going.

I had read that Cornelia knits from a skein she places in her lap. She does not wind it into a yarn cake or ball...merely lays it down and pulls yarn from it as she goes. I know I'd have a mess of tangles if I ever attempted this...

The last class for the day was Cornelia's Swedish sock class. The class was going to be outdoors under a large tent...good thing for great weather. When I got there Cornelia was none too pleased about the table & chair placement. Four rows of tables & chairs on both sides of an aisle and they were all facing forward just like school. Cornelia & I moved the tables into a large square so we were all facing each other...a much nicer, more intimate setting.

Cornelia started the class by saying that we could custom design socks for any foot with any yarn...to start you need the width aroud the ankle and the gauge of the yarn to figure out the number of stitches to cast on. As the class started we found that we were going to do a different sock...an anklet so we could get further along into the mechanics of sock knitting. Before class ended we actually made it through the cuff, leg, heel flap, turning the heel, gusset decreases and talked about decreasing for the toes and even how she closes off the toe. Cornelia uses the same technique as when you close up a hat...run yarn through the last 8 stitches and pull tight. It looks kind of pointy, but you could not feel it from the inside. I still like the look of Kitchner and I love doing it so I'll probably continue using that as my preferred method.

The patterning she chose looks nice...a 7 stitch moss pattern with some ribbing created as you go. I'm must redo the ski socks with some of the tips from Cornelia to see if I can get the heel area from bunchin up...this pattern and slipped stitch heel may do the trick!