Sunday, July 29, 2012

An Invitation

I'll be teaching at the 4th annual Scotts Bluff Valley Fiber Arts Fair in Scotts Bluff, Nebraska, this September 14 and 15 (that's a Friday and Saturday). The fair includes classes, a marketplace, demonstrations, book signings, fiber animals, food vendors, music, silent auction, and more, including guided tours of Brown Sheep Yarn Company.

This year, I'll be teaching a two-day class on Sweater Design and Finishing. 
In this two-day workshop, you’ll make a miniature pullover (suitable for a teddy bear or, perhaps, an infant) following the pullover instructions in The Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns. Your sweater will be worked in four pieces—one back, one front, and two sleeves. To minimize the amount of class-time knitting, all students will work a small sweater in worsted-weight yarn. To prepare for the class, students will knit the four pieces to the armholes according to instructions that will be provided at the time of registration. 
In the class, you can choose between drop-shoulder, modified drop-shoulder, and set-in sleeve shaping, and between round and V-neck shaping. So, even though you will knit only one version, you'll lear the others. Best of all, you'll leave with a completed sweater and all the knowledge you need to design, knit, and finish your next sweater beautifully.
You will learn:
  • determining the correct garment size
  • measuring a gauge swatch
  • calculating even spacing of increases or decreases
  • centering a pattern stitch
  • working selvedge stitches
  • paired increases and decreases
  • picking up stitches around a neckline
  • an elastic bind-off appropriate for ribbed necklines
  • seaming
  • blocking
  • tips and tricks along the way
I've been assigned a large classroom and there's lots of space available. For information, visit nebraskafiberfair.com. I hope to see you there! 

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Raffle Winners

Thank you for your eager anticipation for The Knitter's Handy Book of Top-Down Sweaters. I hope the book won't disappoint.

The random-number picker I used must like the East coast because both winners appear to be from the NYC area. The winners are NYCKAY and Jersey Shore Deb: Congratulations! Email me at annbudd@annbuddknits.com to let me know your mailing addresses, and I'll get the books in the mail.

For the rest of you, thanks for participating and keep visiting my blog -- there are sure to be more raffles in the future!

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Raffle Time!

They're here! The Knitter's Handy Book of Top-Down Sweaters arrived at the Interweave warehouse. Of course, this momentous occasion needs to be celebrated with another raffle. I'll use a random-number generator to choose two (2) names from those that respond to this post by midnight (mountain time) Wednesday, July 25 and send those winners a complimentary copy.
Sharpen your needles!

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Catching Up

I am currently backed up against a number of deadlines, and as Murphy would have it, every time I open my inbox, there's at least one message that requires some action and puts me further behind. I bet most of you can relate.

For example, I recently got a message that there was a typo in my last blog entry (dated around July 2) about the complete and corrected version of The Knitter's Handy Book of Top-Down Sweater e-book now being available. Instead of correcting the error, I managed to delete the entire entry. (Here's the link if you want to order a copy for immediate download). I finally gave up on trying recover it and was so fearful of deleting anything else that I've been hesitant to post another entry. Hence, the long gap since I last wrote.

But I have made some progress on the Terpander socks from Sock Knitting Master Class. I'm about halfway up the leg and plan to finish the first sock this weekend (really!).


When I announced that I was going to knit every pair of socks in the book, I expected to complete them all by the one-year anniversary of the book's publication. Given that the anniversary is just a couple of weeks away and there are three more pairs (as well as the mate to this one) left to knit, you can be sure that this day will come and go without fanfare.

In the good news department, I've received an advance copy of the book version of The Knitter's Handy Book of Top-Down Sweaters. And in the really good news department, the slow boat from China docked and the shipment is due to arrive at Interweave on Monday (July 17), a couple of weeks ahead of schedule!


Just for the record, I do NOT plan to blog about knitting every sweater in that book!