Week One: Home is... where all my knitting machines are.

My new space at the Knit-1 studio in Brighton.

Week One: Hit the Ground Running, As They Say

Hmm... Can someone confirm or correct the capitalization of As and They in my title up there? I was too lazy to try an unearth the rule on an online MLA.

So week one:

I have definitely hit the ground running. After a whirlwind weekend that involved packing up my entire flat, getting it ready for the subletters, moving me, my yarn, and my three knitting machines down to London, where my incredible friend Magnus (check him out for all your graphic design needs) hosted me and my aforementioned belongings to save me from forking out for a hotel room in Brighton while I found a new place to live for the next 12 weeks, I knit. I knitted from 10 to 5:30. I knitted Monday to Friday. I knitted stripes. Zigzag stripes. Ombre stripes. Broken stripes. Striped chevrons. Undulating stripes. Tuck stitch stripes. Tucked stitches stripes. (yes there is a difference). Weaving stripes. Shaped stripes. Felted and unfelted stripes. Dropped stitch stripes. on and on and on. When I wasn't knitting, I was memorizing knit handouts trying to translate what I read on the page in front of me and also figure out just how the heck I'd managed to complete an undergrad and masters degee in fashion and textile design and still obviously have SO MUCH MORE to learn. When I wasn't memorizing knit hand outs, I was thinking about my label. My knitwear label. Even when I wasn't directly thinking about knitting, my most basic thoughts involved yarn. How was I going to order it? Where were they going to ship it?

I commuted to Brighton everyday from London, while the entire country's transportation system was incapacitated by relentless falling and never melting snow. 5:45am wake up call, followed by a 6:00, it's amazing Magnus is still speaking to me (just). Home by 8/9. Even though I had early starts, I wondered how it was possible that I could be so tired. I got home each night feeling like I'd spent a day performing hard manual labor. Well actually, maybe I have. Some people have suggest that knitting causes a chemical reaction in the brain. Perhaps creating all these new neural pathways really is hard work. See you soon for a review of week 2 and photos.

Knit Like Your Life Depends on It

Wow. I have been knitting non-stop since January 11th. And I mean non-stop. Sure, I suppose you could count the weekend I spent clearing out and cleaning up my Glasgow flat in preparation for the incoming subletters as a knitting break, but that would hardly be fair.

I have won a £2000 Professional Development grant from the Scottish Arts Council to attend a 12 week workshop at Knit-1, a knitwear design company in Brighton, England. At first, I was completely in shock that I had won. I found out that I had gotten the funding the Friday before the Monday morning the course started. That was a bit of an awkward sentence, forgive me. Anyway, I screamed my head off into the telephone, like an American teenager might do when calling into a radio station giveaway upon finding out they are the 11th caller and the winner of a pair of Justin Timberlake concert tickets. I think the Scottish woman on the end of the line was a bit taken aback by my obvious lack of (British) reserve.

I'm entering my third week of the course today and I know I have a bit of catching up to do. I've finally found a suitable place to live, which fortunately for my love of long lie ins is directly across the street from my course, but not so fortunate for my derriere. I have also been reunited with the World Wide Web, which was a sorely missed friend over the last 2 weeks. Anyway. I'm not quite sure what I will tell you all each week, all I can do is assure you that I will try to keep you all up to date on all the things I'm learning, which I am sure you'll see filtering down to my future collections.