KNITTING WITHOUT DOG HAIR IS NOT AN OPTION

And no time to start any new projects.

Must ... not ... pick ... up ... needles ... and ... yarn ... to ... start ... project ... number ... who ... knows ... what ... just ... for ... fun.

I realized last week that I am pretty much totally booked until the end of 2007 with events, knitting workshops, get-togethers, holiday parties, some gift-knitting and a big wedding. I can't believe it. Somehow I must have used multiple calendars when I RSVPed for all these things.

And even tho' I don't have a long list of knitted gifts like last year, I still want to knit a few things. Anyway...

After the Saturday workshops with Lily Chin, I see a lot of reversible cables and short row shaping in my future.

The morning workshop was called Reversible Cables, and we had a lot of fun during this workshop. Lily had a very, very, very interesting way to explain how cables work.

For one, she explained with her arms and fingers how cables work - very visual. And then she went a fascinating step further… which was hilarious and will make me giggle every time I cable from now on. According to Lily, cables are like adulterous couples. I'm not going include on my blog all the descriptive words she used because I would attract a lot of visitors who don't usually read my blog. But she mentioned, for example, the movie Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. You get my drift, no?

Coincidently, I wore a cable sweater that day that my mom knitted for me a few years ago. (I guess I was channeling Lily in the morning.) It has a pretty complicated cable pattern running down the back and front. I'll have to have a word with Mom about what she was thinking knitting such a Sodom and Gomorrah sweater for me. ;-)

Some of Lily's quotes on cables:
The back side (wrong side) of cables look like someone with a lot of zits and lumpy bumby.
The filthier your mind, the more exciting are your cable designs.
The s*e*x life of cables.

Please picture a room full of proper Southern ladies. ;-)

You can see that Lily had everyone paying attention. You simply have to if you want to keep up with her. Or it might just have been her very vivid descriptions of "proper" cabling...

Unfortunately, my camera batteries croaked during the morning workshop, so I have almost no cable pictures. But I got new batteries during lunch break, and there are tons of pictures from the afternoon workshop.

The afternoon class was all about Shaping Up with Short Rows.

This is my class swatch:

Look how small my swatch looks compared to Lily's class swatch:

This workshop was an eye-opener for me regarding shaping sweater decreases and increases at the shoulders, armholes, sleeve caps and necklines with short rows. OMG - I thought a gazillion times - duh, so much nicer and so much easier than binding off all these stitches and picking them up again later. Here are some short row examples for you:

You can look at all my Lily Chin workshop pix in my Flickr album.

I had such a great time. Lily was very fun to be with and I truly enjoyed the weekend. She was also very funny. One of my favorite quotes was, if there's ever a nuclear holocaust, the only survivors will be cockroaches and Red Heart.

I'm glad the AKG was able to get her for these workshops. Lily teaches a lot at Stitches and other conventions, but she is always fully booked within hours. I was told that some people have had to wait years to get into one of her workshops. Good thing she likes to teach at knitting guilds and yarn shops as well. ;-)

Thanks again Lily - I really had a great time and I learned a lot!

Oh, and you can see my indecent cable sweater in this picture. I'm trying to conceal some of the action with my scarf... just kidding!