Day Three at Squam Art Workshops was quite a day. Basically, it was fabulous!
It’s hard to put into words all the joy, fun and happiness that was squeezed into this one day, my birthday. I’ll give it a try, but maybe the pictures will be a better explanation. Far from home, I still felt the love from family, friends and my Squammies. Throughout the day, I received lots of FB messages, text messages and emails. I opened some birthday cards that my mom, hubbie and friend Carmen sent with me, shared two bottles of Moreland Sparkling Wine with my cabin mates and ate some of my favorite Butterscotch Cake with Chocolate icing that my mom has made for me every birthday since I can remember.
Here’s a picture of 9 of the 13 of my cabin mates. They sang Happy Birthday to me while I set up the tripod and automatic timer on the camera.
And then there was this…
Yep, that’s me hanging with the Harlot. She was as funny and down-to-earth as I had hoped she would be. She’s written several books and has been described as the David Sedaris of the knitting world. My hubbie sent me to SAW with some of his homebrew to give her, Moreland Brewing Company’s Bunjie Brown Ale and The Baxter Black Geek Stout. Our conversation was short and sweet and covered all the bases:
LL: I’ve brought some beer for you.
Harlot: I love Beer!
LL: I know!
Harlot: This is very exciting for me. No one’s ever brought me beer before.
LL: You’re kind but I am sure this is much more exciting for me to be giving beer to the Harlot. Be careful, the Stout is 9% alcohol.
Harlot: I’m Canadian, I can handle it.
She was so kind and was as nice as could be. I was glad that my “knitting Rock Star hero” lived up to my expectations. Seriously, I tried to prepare myself that she may not be as cool in person. Nope, even cooler and wittier. And the best part: my morning and afternoon class, Knitting for Speed and Efficiency, was with her … Stephanie Pearl-McPhee aka the Yarn Harlot. The morning session was an incredible look into the history of knitting. Did you know it’s been around 1000 years and spinning is even older? The first time knitting is mentioned in literature is in Shakespeare? She talked about the two different types of people: people who knit for pay and people who knit for pleasure. We watched an interesting slide show on knitting in art and talked about how women were always multitasking, much like we do today. They would carry large baskets of peat for the fire on their backs while knitting. Small knitting belts held their knitting and they would knit when they had a few spare moments…waiting for the kettle to boil, hanging things to dry. No idle hands. We also watched a video of the 5 fastest knitters in the world: two pickers and three lever knitters. The afternoon session was spent learning to “lever” knit, the type of knitting that for profit knitters used for its speed and efficiency. Here’s Harlot demonstrating. Her hands were moving so fast that they show up as a blur. She knits about 60 stitches a minute with one needle tucked in her armpit and the other whipping back and forth like a sewing machine! Amazing to watch.
The Harlot then showed us how to hold the yarn and make a go of it ourselves.
I took copious notes hoping I could remember how to do it when I got home because there are no books or videos demonstrating the technique. Well, no videos that you can accurately learn from. It was a wonderful class and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
It also made me thankful that I don’t have to support myself with my knitting! We would definitely starve. Think I’ll stick with the day job for now.
All in all, it was a wonderful birthday. Class with the Harlot. Knitting on the porch.
The evening was spent with my cabin mates around the fire giggling and talking about things like, “you should really google the name of your knit shop before you name it, to make sure it doesn’t mean something disgusting.” True Story.
Yes, it doesn’t matter what age you are when you go to camp. You still end up talking about disgusting things and laughing into the wee hours of the night.
And it wouldn’t be a post about Squam without a picture of the lake. Enjoy your day.
Love your posts, this was my second year. Sorry didn’t get to meet you. Loved that you got a pic of the yarn placement for stephanies lever knitting. I took her class at Madrona fiber arts and couldn’t read my notes. I’ll give i try again.
Thanks! Steph actually said during the class “now would be a good time to take a picture of your hand with the yarn placement for referral later.” Totally appreciated her saying that!