Two classes! (loooong post)

I will show my progress on the current known projects first.  Here is my latest Fussy Cut Star, number 15.  I used another Judie Rothermel fabric for this one and love it.

And here are the City Sampler quilt blocks I made this week.

(The top two are butt ugly IMO.  lol!)

Sadly, A Parrot has been put aside for now.   But I have good reason.

On Tuesday, I ventured back into NYC to go to this shop, String.

I went there to take a class in Fair Isle!  I've wanted to learn how to knit fair isle and intarsia forever.  After all, I've been a huge Kaffe Fassett fan ever since he first came out with those magnificent huge intarsia sweaters years and years ago.  Our class project was this piece, the Mobius cowl from Vogue Knitting Magazine.

It was a great class, and I came away having learned a great deal.  Afterwards, I wandered around a bit.  Here are a few sites I saw.

This is a cupcake ATM!  lol!  The screen on the left is where you make your choices and purchase, the door on the right opens to reveal your cupcakes all boxed and ready to go.  No, I didn't try them, just watched.

This is the food market in Grand Central.  An amazing place!  Full of everything you could want -- fresh produce, baked goods, fresh meats and seafood, prepared foods to take home, cheeses, nuts and legumes, -- everything!  I loved strolling through to see what was available.

I met the father type in Grand Central, and we went to the food concourse and ate at Junior's for dinner.

Junior's is most famous for their cheesecakes, so of course, we had to have dessert.

In the course of our telling each other about our days, I discovered that the father type went to a talk and book signing for an author at Google.  (Google is constantly getting famous people to talk and/or play music at their site.)  I plotzed when I found out who the author was -- Emma Donoghue!!!!

Unbeknownst to the father type, I am a huge fan of hers, having read many of her books.  And of course, I just started her latest book, "Frog Music."  But of course, her talk was around the same time as my class anyway.  Ah well.  The father type has a signed copy of "Frog Music" somewhere in his office space now.  Lucky guy.

Now here are the results of my fair isle knitting once I was home.  First up, a start on the Lidya scarf from Rowan magazine number 48.  (I got the yarn for this one when that magazine first came out years ago, in the hope of being able to knit it one day.)

Then it was back to the class project.  My progress so far.

Still working on tension.  I think I'm mostly good, except perhaps for the longer floats in a few places.  And the Koigu yarn is a pleasure to work with, much more forgiving than the Rowan yarn for the Lidya scarf.

As if that weren't enough, on Saturday, my friend Kathy (no blog) and I headed down to NJ, almost to the Pennsylvania border, to attend a class with Catherine Theron!  So exciting!

There she is, standing in the blue sweater, which I've been told was hand knitted by Catherine herself!

In the foreground of the picture, you can see my friend Kathy's sewing box (which Kathy is digging into), which she stitched (it's a design by Cathy Campbell of Primitive Traditions).  I've always admired it.  Here's a pic of the top.

Anyway, back to the class -- here's the class kit!

We also could buy two smalls kits, one for a needlebook, one for a scissor holder and fob, complete with tiny Bohin scissors.  I, of course, bought them.

It was a great class, and the best part is the finishing looks easy.  I like easy.  lol!  I don't have much progress to show, just some nun stitch on the border of one piece.

This is what happened when I got home from class.

Mia jumped into my stitching bag as I was unpacking it.  Of course.  It was also a beautiful day, so Mia was enjoying the open windows and doors.

Thanks as always for stopping by and saying hi.  I hope everyone has a great week!