A morning at the Slater Mill

At the last KR retreat I learned about the Slater Mill near Providence, RI from the lovely Pat. Wait, there's a knitting get-together only an hour from me but I have never gone?! Clearly this had to be remedied so I signed up for Deborah Newton's class Finishing School as part of the 4th Annual Knitting Weekend. It's not just about classes, the weekend has social events and a marketplace as well but I could only spend Saturday morning there. I hope to take a class with Mary-Jane Mucklestone on fair-isle next time.

The marketplace was set in the Slater Mill museum and the machinery was just fascinating. There was an antique sock knitting machine much larger than the ones I have seen at the sheep and wool festivals and some very impressive circular knitting machines.

Pampero from Norah Gaughan vol 10

The weekend was sponsored by Berroco so I admired several garments on dress forms from recent and upcoming pattern booklets. I was a little star-struck when Cecily Glowik MacDonald of Winged Knits and Melissa LaBarre of Knitting School Dropout signed my copy of "New England Knits". Together they recently published two books with Interweave and two collections for Quince. Each of them has an impressive list of designs -- self-published, in magazines, and as collaborations with yarn companies. They were so sweet and I look forward to seeing more of their designs.

We interrupt this knitting blog...

...with pictures snapped at last week's food competition among some of the best chefs in Boston such as Jody Adams of Rialto and Barbara Lynch of B&G Oysters. The judges included Gov. Deval Patrick and Ming Tsai of Blue Ginger. It's not just knitting/crochet/sewing classes around here: Boy and I are attending a class at Rialto on one-pot meals and the "all you knead" bread-making class at the Cambridge school of culinary arts, I will let you know what I learnt.

[Unfortunately I blocked a shawl and a pair of socks and promptly mailed them to their recipients so that I forgot to take pictures. Mea culpa. I hope the foodie pictures are a good substitute...]