Friday at Stitches Midwest 2014

My sister and I could not remember if we had free time on Friday or not and it turned out we did not. It turned out that my sister had booked every single class period, even Sunday morning which we were originally going to try and keep free. We had in fact signed up for an all  day class on difficult Estonian stitches.

Merike was one of my very first teachers at my first Stitches Conference. I have taken classes on Spinning, on Estonian knitting patterns and everything else from her.

 She is sensible and a very good teacher, always well organized with things to keep the advanced students busy.  And I like that she offers advanced courses. (For those of us who have been coming to these conventions for many years, it is nice to have something new and exciting to do.)

Merike showed us a variety of possibilities for the stitches that we were studying and told us of the history of Estonian knitting.

She also has us do a sampler that we can turn into something useful. (Something I greatly appreciate!)

This (above) is a sample of what we might have ended up with if we were faster knitters!

Below is an example that I appreciated a great deal since I have the same color variegated yarn. Merike said when she put his on, it looked like she was wearing a slab of meat on her head.

 

We had lunch with Lily and Merike and then went back to class.

Here is a sample swatch made into the front of a sweater.

Here's is one last shot from Merike's class. Here is the sample made up into a head band on one of our class members.

Here is the swatch I ended up with.

This course gave me many new ideas about things to do in the shawl I am knitting, so I found it well worth my while.

Here are a few random photos from the day.  Our friend and concierge Paola made these knitting decorations for our conference. I think they are cute and have very nice colors!

 

I love the bathroom upstairs near the bar. It has crinkled glass on the mirrors and portholes in the stalls. (But high enough up that no one can see in.

 Here is another shot of the second floor lobby. They have these huge veil-like curtains hanging from the ceiling over the seating areas.

It is a very comfortable space to sit and knit. 

That evening we had dinner at a delicious Chinese restaurant and then prepared ourselves for the work of the next day.