I'm trying to type quietly so that I don't wake TrickyTricot. Knitting camp is awesome. Joyce Williams and I were the last ones out, after agreeing to disagree about the various merits of different methods of shaping the shoulders and sleeves of drop-shouldered sweaters. It ended with us wearing each-others sweaters flailing about grabbing at the fabric of the shoulders in exasperation. Hilarious my friends, hilarious.
I figured out the trick to Armenian knitting, which is this cool way to get large blocks of color in stranded knitting without having to do creepy weird stuff. I think I've always known it, but, I share a brain cell with Meg and Joyce, because there's so much in our approach that's similar. Joyce, for instance, shares my aversion to turning her work, to the point that she will purl-back-backwords to get garter stitch. I'm not that hardcore, but I will avoid projects if it involves turning. Tringular shawls, for example.
I sat next to Meg, Meg Swansen (!), during show and tell, and it was nifty to see what we responded to, and how frequently it was similar. It was just sort of nifty.
Michael, said this morning something to the effect of "you seem like you know a lot of people," which is interesting, because I've met two of them before, but other than that nada. I guess I mingle well, or something. It's interesting/nice to get outside validation of your apparent social skills/network, particularly at points where you feel like your social network/skills in the broader scope might be shrinking.
Also, I brought a lace shawl to camp that I knit a few years ago in 100% tencel, that had developed a nasty snag. Another camper and I spent some time on the ground pinning it out again to get the snag under control. The camp room still has a lace carpet.
IN other news, my camp knitting, which is a plain sweater, is coming along nicely. I figure that I should be able to get done with it by lunch time (g-d willing) and then I can get back to knitting color work. Speaking of which, a woman was knitting this amazing color-work sweater in this amazing yarn, that apparently, isn't really available on the internet, but is SUPER amazing and incredibly cheap. Like... Incredibly cheap. And at least theoretically compatible with jumper weight shetland. She brought down the color card and 6 of us took the number. I fully intend to call during break tomorrow and order a sweaters worth.
I also heard about--or more properly that it sunk in--that the reduction in J&S Shetland colors (and concurrent price hike). This means, that really there's not a lot of reason to bother to use their shetland, when HD is such high quality and affordable. I'm a college student after all. In terms of swag, with the exception of the aforementioned yarn, there are a couple of great books that I think I'm going to knit and I'm going to get some sock yarn to make stranded socks.
This will entertain my parents/mother as much as anyone, but I met someone today who is friends/knows morris dancing friends from the Twin Cities.
Other than that... OMG people are reading my blog, omg, steven eley commented on my blog, squee, and um, I got some encouragement to work on knitting designs. I've been feeling rather uninspired of late, so that was good. I just need to figure out a way to have time to both knit, and be a science fiction writer.
Sorry for the long rambling post.... but I think I need to write something for cast on podcast about going to camps: morris camp, knitting camp, and the idea/possibility of going to clarion or something.
ok, over and out folks, I need to figure out a way to pass out, I'm going to need to be awake again in almost no time.
Cheers, tycho