Dallas Ft. Worth Seminar

Barbara and I spent the day at the Dallas-Ft. Worth Seminar!  We have finally figured out that if we put the El Fenix restaurant, which is on the same parking lot but facing a different street, into the GPS unit instead of Stacy's Furniture, we can navigate to the place.  This should end our tradition of wrong turns as we try to find Stacy's.

It's a nice-sized crowd, about 25 knitters. and the teacher is Carole of Carole's Country Knits and Rocking Horse Farm, near St. Cloud, Minnesota.  Carol's home page is Rocking Horse Farm and they have pretty much a full-service knitting machine dealership.

We were obviously delighted to find books, yarn and tools for sale. 

Barbara, Rose, Mary and I from Austin were so happy to see all our DFW buddies!  There really is something special about the camaraderie among knitters.  I got Carole's permission to blog about her and proceeded to take copious notes.  What a wonderful day!  Those of you who don't attend seminars are missing out.  It's even worth it if you have to travel.  Barbara and I drove about four hours last night to come to this one, and we're having a fantastic time.

Photo is a pretty red hat made on the Passap that is one of Carole's samples.

Carole's first demonstration segment was all about tuck stitch.  Carole has a whole series of scarves, tops, vests, shawls and sweaters utilizing a very pretty single bed tuck technique, complete with a little scalloped edge that stays pretty even after washing.  Of course, I had to buy that book, Versatility Tuck, and Barbara had to get one, too.  A lot of Carole's things have simple shaping and yet are very wearable and classy.

Pictured:  A delicate tucked cap-sleeve sweater in lavender.

Carole is a warm, genuine, funny, practical down-to -earth demonstrator who gives a lot of interesting tips.  She knits items to sell, and has some good ideas about that business; in addition, she has lots of machine tips to share.  She gave us great handouts - a folder of goodies for everyone - and she explains how things were made in some detail. 

We had a wonderful potluck lunch and lots of fellowship.

After lunch, Carole showed us some socks she knitted.  She likes to knit them flat and put a seam along the inside of each foot.  Carole knits her heels and toes a little tigher than the rest of the sock.  Here's a typical Carole tip:  if you can break the yarn with your hands, it's probably not going to wear well unless you add something to it to reinforce it. 

Carol demonstrated her Infinity Scarf with ribbed edges.  She demonstrated her yoked shadow-lace skirts, and I especially found her blocking procedure interesting.  She demonstrated a nifty wriggle-lace vest, and showed us a great many more samples of fun things to knit.  My favorite afternoon session was her discussion of how to take care of a garter carriage so it will hold up for a long time.

Here's a closeup of Carole's tuck stitch knitting - check out that scalloped edge -

When you go to seminar, you get to see the other knitters' pretty garments - check out Linda's beautiful coat (with an amazingly perfect set-in zipper).  She did Kool-Aid dyeing to make the yellow/orange/red yarn!

We had seminar until about 5 p.m., then Barbara and I met my son and his fiance (my son lives in Richardson, so I always try to see him when I'm in Dallas for any reason) and we had a lovely dinner at Olive Garden. 

I'll put up more pictures tomorrow!  The slow internet connection at the hotel is challenging my patience.