Vogue Knitting Live Day 2

Posted by on Jan 25, 2013 in Blog Posts, Fibery Events, Product Reviews | 0 comments

Vogue Knitting Live continued on Sunday. As I knitted my way to the Marriott, I thought I was prepared. Really. When I pack for a class, I put everything but the kitchen sink into my backpack.

I took Brenda Dayne’s Mrs. Beeton class. If you haven’t seen them, Mrs. Beetons are lacy wrist warmers with a beaded cast-on edge, and added beaded adornment. Brenda Dayne is famous for her podcast, Cast-on.

The supply list for the class listed the following:

  • Smooth light colored wool, DK or light worsted preferred.
  • Pencils,
  • Graph paper.
  • Stitch dictionary not required, but would be an asset!

I dutifully packed a cream colored skein of Pattons Merino, and some leftover balls of Bugga and Anzula Fibers Squishy. I also had a pad of graph paper, mechanical pencils, and my ipad stocked with at least one stitch dictionary. This was in addition to the regular knitting supplies I drag around with me in my pencil case of knitting doom. I had my Addi Turbo Lace interchangeable set with me, although a needle size wasn’t specified.

I arrived at class about five minutes late. I was feeling rushed, hot, and uncomfortable. I sat down and found that the supplies list was wrong. Very wrong. It should have read:

  • Kidsilk Haze or similar content yarn
  • Fingering or light DK yarn in a coordinating color to the Kidsilk Haze
  • Double Pointed Needles in size 6 and 7
  • 108 Japanese seed beads, size 11/0
  • 18 Czech glass beads, size 8/0

There’s a huge difference between what was listed, and what we needed. The result was that we spent the first hour plus of class waiting for the VKL staff to bring us DPNs and then beads. We didn’t get to do the beaded cast on. We didn’t really get that far into the pattern. I should have been able to get at least halfway through one wrist warmer during the three hour class. After deciding that I didn’t so much care about the beaded cast on, I made it through one repeat of the first pattern.

My feeling on this is that VKL was partly to blame, Brenda was partly to blame. It happens, and it was handled fairly well. I would have been less happy if I were a less experienced knitter. There were people in the class who had never done a long tail cast on and who had never worked with double pointed needles. This had to have been a frustrating and difficult class for them.

I like the Mrs. Beeton pattern. I’m likely to make them, and probably pretty soon. I really wanted to meet Brenda Dayne. She sounds just like she sounds on her podcast.