New York Part 2 - Colour!!!

Kaffe Fassett showing off some of his stripe work

The best way to describe day two of the conference is colour!!  It started with an inspiring lecture with Kaffe Fassett showing us some of his amazing work.  We got to see varieties of quilts, knitting and needlwork that were just incredible.  He truely has a gift for colourwork.  He showed us pictures of his workshop as well.  I think it's safe to say everyone in the lecture hall was envious!  What I took away from his lecture was to be BOLD with colour.  To not be afraid to put lots of colour in and to have fun with it. 

Welcome to the market!

  I then had a large break between lectures so I headed to the 2 level market place.  I will post more pictures on Facebook as there is just not enough room here.  It was amazing to see such a variety of fibres, products and colours.  They had yarn sampling stations so you could try differnent yarns which I thought was really fun.  Lots of vendors with yarn directly from their farms and some beautiful fibres like mink, qiviut and yak!

Yarn sample station.

The Vogue Knitting fashion show was also on and it was great to see the Spring/Summer line up including some beautiful crocheted items!  I really liked some of the tops that had a simple front and some great design detail on the back.  The full fashion show photos will be posted on Facebook.

One of my favourites from the show.

Beautiful detail on the back!

I ended the day with a lecture from Erika Knight on trends!  She is a great designer based in England who is immersed in the fashion industry.  As I mentioned on Twitter tangerine is the colour for spring/summer.  But also the very modern black and white prints will be popular, intarsia with bold colour blocks and red for the upcoming winter!  It never ceases to amaze me how far in advance these trends are set.  But once they were pointed out I must say I really noticed it on my stop at Sak's Fifth Avenue. 

Spring display at Saks

Lots of black and white!

Sunday was a fun filled day learning about colours and trends.  I ended the day by going to see a play called Wit starring Cynthia Nixon (Miranda from Sex and the City!).  She was amazing to see live and the play was very powerful.  More on NYC tomorrow!

New York Part 1

Time Square

What a trip!  With so much to write about it I thought it would be best to split it up into parts instead of one HUGE blog entry!  For those following me on Twitter or Facebook you know what a crazy journey it was just to get there!  Partially my fault with forgetting my passport and realizing it just as the bus was heading past Chesterman Beach.  Fortunately my mom was able to hop in the car and meet the bus in Port Alberni with passport, US money and some gravol in hand (it was a really windy trip and my stomach did not enjoy it!)

So a bus ride, ferry, plane and 13 hour car trip through a blizzard we made it to NYC!  First thing we did was eat at the Carnegie Deli where all the famous people go!  I think they have the best pickles!

Me on the right with designer Fiona Ellis.

Saturday morning it was straight into classes at 8:00 am with designer Fiona Ellis.  She taught us how to think out of the box with cables and let us practice creating our own cable designs.  I had fun trying to morph cables in whichever way my hands decided.  But my favourite part was getting to touch her swatches and designs.  They are truely amazing!  I must say that seeing the photos of the designs don't do them justice.  The sweaters and cables were stunning when I got to see them but if I had to choose one by looking at pictures I may not have been so keen to knit them.  But maybe that's just me!  I defintely see a Fiona Ellis cabled sweater in my future!

This is Dusseldorf Aran.  The cable actually becomes the i-cord.  A great design feature.

This is Celtic Icon.  You can't tell from the photo but the pattern continues up on the hood!

This is Bonnie.  I love how she matched the cable on the right with the cable on the sleeve.  So each sleeve is different!

Saturday afternoon was a class with Clara Parkes who is the autor of "The Knitters Book of Wool" and "Book of Yarn" both incredible resources for knitter and crocheters!  If you don't own them you should! It goes into great detail about the various fibres, their origins and the how they knit up.  She is also the owner of the Knitters Review a great knitting website.  The afternoon was what she called a "Scratch and sniff version of her Book of Wool." And it really was!  Lots of touching of different wools, knitting up swatches and learning all about the different types of wool out there.  There will be more blog posts about this as I go through my class materials as it was such a great class! 

The one handy tip I want to pass along today - if you have a ball of yarn and you don't know what the recommended needle size is fold the yarn in half and then see which hole it fits through on a needle gauger.  The hole it fits through best is the needle you should use!

Thats all I can fit in this blog entry!  NYC to be continued!