Weekend with Franklin Habit

What an extraordinary weekend! Friday night was Knit Night at the Sow's Ear and Franklin Habit, author and Master Knitmeister was on hand to sign his book, It Itches.  He also did a reading and had us all rolling (more so than usual even, which could officially constitute a medical emergency in some cases).  Then he popped into The Naughty Girls' room to visit with us for a bit. He regaled us with stories of his knitterly travels.  I've met Franklin several times and he is always every bit as delightful in person as  he is on the web.  Here's a picture of the two of us together.  I cropped it a little so it only shows the nice bits.

Saturday I went to the Madison Knitting Guild's Knit In at The Bishop O'Conner center here in Madison. I had signed up for Franklin's "How To Photograph Your Knitting So it's Recognizable To Other Humans' class in the afternoon, which left the entire morning free to sit by the windows overlooking the serene courtyard and knit to my heart's content.

 It also left time to go to the Vendor Show. As you know, I'm on a yarn diet this year and I'm proud to announce that I did not break my diet....unless a pottery yarn bowl is cheating....and I'm saying it's not.

 It sure was difficult to resist the bounty of color and soft lusciousness....

 There was eye candy everywhere...including the hand knit sweater this gentleman was wearing. Just stop an consider this one for a moment.  How many ends do you think there were in that sucker.  I know! Scary.

Had lunch with Dale Harriet, who took a Victorian Knitting class all morning, and Sarah, who shared some of her amazing Zentangles with me, and then headed off to Franklin's class.  It! Was! Awesome!  I learned to much! And it would have been even better if I'd actually read my camera manual at some point before the class so that I knew how all of the bells and whistles worked (see earlier posts for 'doodling in lieu of doing homework' history).  But you all have witnessed my previous photos, you knew that I've never cracked that book!

We learned all about light, shadow, depth and styling.  He even showed us how to make a cheap light box to help in photographing smaller pieces.  He let us use the one he had put together in the class room so I shoved my sweater-in-progress in there. [Along with my entire head for the first several shots.  This seems to actually hinder the light so the photos didn't come out.  I'll bet Franklin includes 'Keeping Your Head Out Of The Light Box' section in his future classes.] But after several attempts I got a pretty good shot that shows the color and the texture of the pattern.

All too soon it was time to come home and feed the beast who had been dutifully keeping the squirrels out of the house all day. That grey blur to the right is a squirrel butt hightailing it away. Good job Ben!  Again, another photo taken BEFORE Franklin's class.

All in all it was an AWESOME weekend!  How was yours?