Acquiring Some Class* (Tails from the Convention)

Hey Ma look what I made at school! I had a great time taking a class at the convention. I learned how to use five DPNs at once to make a giant mitten. "Jolly honey! I'm home. Here's something to keep you warm in the freezer section!" Okay, so it's an oven mitt. Or at least it will be once it's felted/fulled. I just haven't gotten around to doing so since I want to make another one at least before I do so. I want to use the original as a reference as to what the next mitt should look like as I go along. And if it's already been felted, then I can't see a dern thing. Lol. Class was fun. I think this was in part due to our instructor. Who did we have? Gwen Bortner of Knitability. She was friendly, fun and fantastic. She took the time to help everyone out with a cheerful attitude. Didn't go nuts if someone messed up. She gave us all the confidence to work with all those pointy sticks, and let us know over and over again that any mistakes would be felted out. With her positive attitude and great teaching skills we were able to fly through the project. And she managed to do it all on her birthday! Our class was a novelty for her. Although she had taught such classes using the same curriculum, etc. Before she had never had one who was so quiet. (We were all in the knitting zone.) Nor had she ever had a class that finished before the time the class ended. Usually they stayed late in order to finish up the knitting of the project. Our class finished before 4:30, and class was officially over at 5! I guess it was our birthday gift to her. The project went along well for me. It was tricky working with all those sticks at first. But then as you went along it got easier. A couple of times I pulled out the wrong dpn when knitting. I would mean to pull the newly nude dpn out of my hand and accidentally pull out a dpn with stitches on it. Yikes! But they easily went back on and I continued progress. There are a few errors here and there (a twisted stitch, a bigger gap on the thumb where it joins, etc.) but as Gwen assured us, it will felt out and no one will ever be able to tell about the oopsies I made in the learning process. (If you come to my house hoping to see the mitt just so you can see if you can spot the mistakes, no cookie for you!) At the end of class someone had made a hanging loop for their mitt. And having made numerous crocheted cotton potholders I decided to do the same with a twist. I crocheted one round on the bottom of the mitt, made a chain loop and joined it to the mitt. Then I "turned back" and single crocheted around the loop and back around the bottom of the mitt, then fastened off. Since it is going to felt (and shrink) I thought a wider hanging tab would work better. We shall see how it comes out of the wash. I was quite the shutterbug during class. I kind of felt as though I was the odd man out (or odd woman as there were no men in my class**). No one else was taking any pictures. But now I have a visual of how the mitt progresses. While we were knitting Gwen had gone around the room and asked each of us what we did for a living. There was a high school student, a lawyer, a retired banker, a teacher, etc. When she came to me I said that I was a stay at home mom and she seemed quite surprised. She said that with my note taking (yes I furiously scribbled notes as well as taking snaps) and the pictures I kept taking of the mitt progress she thought for sure that I was in some kind of research or other detail oriented work. In fact she pointed out to the whole class that I was smart to take my progress pictures as it was a good reference for later. I guess I was a class novelty for both my mad snapping and being the only SAHM in a class of working women. (The high school student being excluded because she was there with her mom and chatting about working towards her college degree beginning next year, and looking forward to being a working woman.) Overall it was quite the positive experience. So much so that I am now looking into maybe attending Stitches East 2005 in Atlantic City this fall. Can I manage to swing that without hubby wanting to tag along and bet the house (literally) on a game of cards? That's the tricky part. For now it is only in the dreaming stages. I did sign up for the information packet, and am eagerly awaiting it's mailing. Hopefully it will be hear by the end of the month. The sooner, the better so I can start drooling. *When talking to our friends the weekend of the convention I mentioned that I was going to take a class on how to use double pointed needles. Hubby overheard and made the comment that I was finally going to get some class. Thus the name for the post. **There were men at the convention. I can not say if they, themselves, were knitters or crocheters since I did not see them working on any projects.