Friday, February 22, 2008

Stitches West!

I belong to the Machine Knitters Guild of San Francisco Bay Area, along with a bunch of really talented knitters. Above is our Booth (#946) at Stitches West. I was responsible for all things Stitches for our guild this year. While it was a lot of work, my best knitting buddy and I had a ball designing the booth and setting it up. The garments above were all knit on knitting machines and designed by the knitters from our guild.

This is a two piece garment made by one of our members, this outfit is well designed, knit and is just plain old stunning!



Really some beautiful garments and they really made the booth look good. This is a membership drive for our guild. You have no idea how many knitters have knitting machines under the bed at home and have no idea how to use them. I know this because I was one of those knitters. I bought knitting machines, I had 2 before I even knew how to use one. So this is a demo booth to let other knitters know that we have a local guild and it is for the express purpose of teaching machine knitting.


This is my best knitting buddy, she is demonstrating a knitting machine that is on loan to the guild from Newtons Yarn Country. We had so many garments volunteered for the booth, we tried to pick one from each of the knitters to highlight.

Above is a wedding dress that one of our newest members knit. The amazing thing is that she knit it on the Ultimate Knitting Machine and hand manipulated all the lace in the dress. Her knitting machine has no ablity to auto pattern and if you want a pattern in your knit, you have to hand manipulate every stitch. It was a daunting undertaking, she finished her dress and wore it when she got married, I will bet she was a beautiful bride.


Our knitting guild is an amazing cross section of knitters and designers. I feel blessed to have found this group of amazing people. The talent is one thing, but the sharing of knowledge and experience is priceless. The green sweater above was also knit by the same member who knit the wedding dress. This green sweater has leather details that she designed and incorporated into the sweater.