Great Knitterly Happening

It is true what doctors say about aging  - recovery takes longer.  Last weekend, we spent four days feasting and  visiting with friends and family.  Arriving home too tired and  too disorganized to blog, I am just now getting back to routine.

I am glad though that I was back to routine enough by Wednesday to attend a great, local,  knitterly event.  Meaford library routinely hosts 'author talks'.  Living in an area much sought after by retirees means many, highly-educated, experts-in-their-field, even world-famous people now call this area home.  And because they are retired they  give of their knowledge, time  and expertise for little or no monetary compensation.

Thus, in the library's series of author talks, I have listened to an author who wrote for the New York Times, one who had his own TV show, one who wrote for the Toronto Star, one who worked for the CBC, one who is a syndicated columnist and the list goes on.

But the best - for knitterly greatness - was the author we heard last Wednesday.  The library hosted Deb Gemmell.  Her topic was "What Can You Do With A Basic Top- Down?"

 The crowd begins to gather.

 Deb likes to encourage the inner designer in all of us.  With  samples to illustrate,  she walked us through the process of taking a basic pattern and re-designing it to something entirely our own. 

 

Beginning with  little, baby steps that began with colour changes or  trim changes and leading up to more complicated changes like inserting lace or cables and learning how to adapt the stitch count  for those changes, she dispelled the myth that patterns must be knit as written.  We learned   that changing a pattern is not difficult or to be feared.

She showed us the Chunky adult sweater that used the same pattern  numbers as the  fine-yarn, baby sweater.    And finally she showed us the miracle of bust darts.  Deb's own un-vention for easy, hidden, no-short-rows-required, bust darts. It was amazing to see how much better the fit  when  ladies' sweaters have more room in the front!  Now why did that take so long to figure out?

Following the talk, we followed Deb over to Purrsonally Yours, Meaford's LYS.  There, generous Isabel had laid out trays of crackers and cheese and fruit with dip. 

Deb opened her second trunk of samples and we had fun trying on sweaters. 

What a great day!  Thank you Meaford Library and thank you Deb.