The seminar was wonderful. I think there were ten of us from the Machine Knitting Guild of Minnesota who attended. There were 40 some attendees in all. Everyone came away enlightened, impressed, energized, enthusiastic and raring to knit. Iris has such an engaging personality and a great teaching ability. She starts with the basic concept of her Kaleidoscope shawl and builds with the details so that you understand the construction. If you have seen this design, you know how complicated it looks. She uses a basic machine and makes wonderful fabric with it. Texture is her forte' achieved by sparing use of expensive hand knitting yarns and weaving them into the design. She's into knitweaving and the various possibilities with that these days but says she's also itching to get back to fairisle designs. Her garments look like very high end boutique things or one of a kind arty pieces that only the really wealthy could afford. But we can make them on our machines!!!!! Our heads were spinning by the end of the second day because she offered so many neat ideas. Was fun to hear her history in the commercial textile world, too. What an artist! Wow.
The only slight disappointment was that she didn't have enough of her books on hand to sell to all who wanted them. It's understandable that she wouldn't want to haul tons to the States, so she took orders and will mail them to our homes. I ordered the Helix sweater and the Kaleidoscope Project, the two in the pic above on the left. No way can a photo do her knits justice. The texture is soooooooooo yummy and the drape she achieves is out of this world. It was cute---she called her expensive, one ball novelty-type collection as "pets". You fall in love with the yarn but it's so expensive you probably only buy one or two skeins. I think I need MORE pets.
Until my books arrive, I think I'll practice some of the techniques by making scarves. Will share my attempts.
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