On Friday I spent the day in Monroe, Michigan (11 miles from Toledo, Ohio). I went to a machine knitting workshop. There were 3 presenters, each was given about an hour and a half. Those women were pushing like crazy to demo as many great tips as they possibly could, in that short time! My head was spinning, but I was happy. I have a photo here of Joyce Banfi, my third instructor. She showed me some things I think I may incorporate in a new (handknit) felted bag, as sooooon as possible!

I still have not had time to sit down at my new knitting machine (A Singer 700 with ribber, which I got in late November just before I left for a month in Africa). I have many plans but no time, yet. At least I can flip through Knitwords, the Machine Knitting machine from Ontario published by Mary Anne Oger (one of the demonstrators this Friday). I have plans to make a few projects from this magazine as my learning projects. Not today, but soon, I hope.

Please don’t write me if you need information about my knit machines (I’m too novice to be of help), but consider subscribing to MACHKNIT @ LIST.LISTHOST.COM (remove spaces) if you want a friendly group who will actually perhaps have some answers for you.

However, I did sit this morning and I tried a new kind of cast on I learned at the workshop. I like how it looks a lot, but I made it significantly too tight for the project I was making (a wristwarmer). I will no doubt just rip out the whole thing and do it again with a looser cast on, and I will try again to do a proper bind off (there is one that matches the look of the cast on so I’ll give that one a try).

Saturday I couldn’t make it to Monroe again because I taught “Felting without Knitting” (wet felting with loose fibers) at Threadbear. We had an absolute blast! Here are Noel and Crystal (I’m hoping I spelled their names right, I can’t find my notes) showing off their class projects. Great job, ladies!