Liveblogging Austin Seminar

9:25 a.m.  All in the room with 4 knitting machines set up, a batch of knitters.  We're all full up with breakfast tacos and Round Rock donuts.  Barbara is talking about Knits for Troops and introducing the first demo - Passap Lock Settings in Plain English.

Samples going around the room.  Munching a donut; no calories at seminar.

Barbara passing around afghans made on the Passap E6000 with deep tucks.

9:40 a.m., Norma from Houston arrives (l o n g drive!).  Joan checks her in, gives her the handouts.



I'll probably only live-blog today...I'm teaching much of tomorrow.

I didn't realize how many mountains of swatches Barbara was doing for the Passap lock settings!

Door prizes in the corner...Mary in charge of that.  Mary says we have 60 of them! 

Carl, John, Barbara and I set the church room up last night.  Like an answer to prayer, Stacy (from San Antonio) was here first thing with tablecloths, chafing dishes, tableware, you name it.  My breakfast taco buffet was rather elegant, thanks to Stacy.

Now she's talking about how to get out of a jammed situation - wriggle out the strippers, go to GX and escape.

She's currently discussing what UX does - one seldom sees anything about UX. 

9:55 - just asked Barbara to demonstrate un-jamming.

10:05 Discussion about orange, blue, and black strippers, what they do, when to use them.  Discussion about the different motors - Barbara has a DM 80 here as well as an E6.  The DM80 was assembled from parts...after they recovered from their lightning strike.

Di door prizes.  Sara won hand-painted yarn from Mary Page's critters.  Stacy won a beginner course and some bright red yarn.  More door prizes later.

10:45 back from break - I just shouted at everyone!

Barbara showing proper form computer swatching. 

10:55 Barbara's showing form computer information.  Oops, discussion about pusher-pusher device.  Discussion about DAK 8.  Back on track - Barbara describing which measurements you can change in the Form Computer.  Going over Form Test.

11:15 Walked us through beeping in the form pattern.  Now she's actually starting to knit; handle up, needles front bed, needles back bed, etc.

Rose is in the kitchen making spaghetti & meatballs.  She has enough meatballs to sink a ship.  We didn't even use all the breakfast ingredients, so we're having breakfast tacos again tomorrow. 

11:40 Barbara is finishing her sample sleeve - lots of decreases for a shaped sleeve cap.  She's about to cast-off.  Discussion going like crazy, steamers, all sorts of subjects.

She finished the form computer demo, even did the steaming.  Putting a pic on the blog...

1:15 Lunch is over.  Spaghetti, meatballs, garlic bread, dessert bread, brownies, fresh fruit platters, green bean casserole and wonderful conversation.

Sara is demonstrating the drop spindle.  She's giving everyone two contrasting pieces of wool just to try spinning the fiber into usable strands.  She's not handing out drop spindles yet.  Now, the class is trying to twist the yarn without the help of any spindle. 

I think I'll go try it!

Next, Sara had us in pairs, one spinning the spindle and one to spin the spindle (Polish jokes are inappropriate)!  Here are Carol and Stacy making great progress! 

Question, can eleven women spin enough yarn for one mitten?

2:10 - I don't know if we have budding spinners, but we certainly have developed our appreciation for Sara's handspun.

Now Rose is drawing numbers for more door prizes.  I just won a hand knit scrubbie and dish cloth, and the last few prizes were handspun yarn.  Now here comes a cute beanie.  Mary did something remarkable for an edging by sewing in ball fringe.  Hmm.  Grab camera...

Finished our fairies - four more people showed up as we were gluing and designing.  They turned out like Southern belles in ball gowns.   My fairy was having a bad hair day, so I ate a brownie and Sara glued an acorn hat on her.

4:15 drawing more door prize names.  I won some fingerless gloves - go, Pat.