Fiber Fun in Frederick

On Saturday, I went to Frederick, MD, for the Indie Artist Celebration held by Eleganza Yarns.  Many independent fiber artists were there (about 14 vendors), and Anne Hanson brought a trunk show:There were a lot of lace shawls and some sweaters, too.  Anne modeled the sweaters and talked about them.  Here is the sweater Ondulé:

It was so interesting to see the sweaters in person that I’ve seen on the blog.  I thought Sprössling was a bit of a celebrity in her own right!

If you looked at it just right, the trunk show formed a very inviting tent of handknits:

I met my friend Julie at the show and she was quite taken with several shawls.  (She had just taken Anne’s lace class earlier in the day, so she was definitely inspired!)

(This event took place in an antique shop, in case you’re wondering about that stuff in the background.)  I wasn’t the only one taking photos.  Here is Anne’s husband, the famous David Whitfield.  I was tickled to take pictures of him taking pictures of us.  I wonder if he noticed?  (Steven, your wonderful sweater is named for David, of course!)

Believe it or not, I only bought one skein of yarn, this sock yarn from Dye Dreams.  I love its dreamy blue-gray tonal colorway:

Julie and I did a bit of window shopping in downtown Frederick and ate dinner at a yummy Ethiopian restaurant.  We were seated at this basket and learned to eat properly with no utensils besides our fingers:

Today (Sunday), I went back for a sock design class with Anne.  It was wonderful.  I took a lot of notes and have a new sock sketched out.  I have about 2” knit so far – look for an update in the future.  Here we are, both in handknit sweaters (hers is Jackie, the female version of Whitfield, and mine is the Must Have Cardi):

And finally, here is a peek at the kind of work we did.  Look at that concentration from my tablemates Terry (on the left) and Connie.  Stitch dictionaries and calculators were everywhere (and now I have at least one new stitch dictionary I would like to obtain).  Connie was at yesterday’s lace class, too, and she said “I sat next to someone else from Gettysburg yesterday… her name was Gretchen.”  I just smiled and said “oh yes, I know Gretchen!”  Small town and all…

I had a thoroughly good time at all these events and am looking forward to more in the future.  What a great weekend!