Sally Melville and creativity

I am too full of cannoli and pasta from the dinner after Sally Melville's talk to do it much justice, but her lecture this evening on creativity, knitting, and inspiration was wonderful.

I'll post more about it tomorrow. But, in the meantime, if you have an opportunity while she is in town (classes tomorrow through the Knitche and then I believe at Stitches Midwest at the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont) to meet her or study with her, do not pass it up. She is one of those teachers whose lessons will resonate over time; she is artistic and extremely smart and funny.

Dinner after the lecture at Clara's Pasta in Woodridge. Great company and conversation at our table amongst the five women there, most of whom had never met before, and whose only connection was knitting.

One of my favorite stories of the evening came from the woman to my left: the mother of two, a boy and a girl. Having knitted for the daughter and not for the son, who was too little to be interested in sweaters, one day her son came to her and said "I want you to knit chainmail for me." And she did, even though this was before knitting had become the trend it is now, and no one had patterns, let alone yarn, for chainmail. But she found a metallic yarn, and made him a tunic and gauntlets to match. Isn't that perfect?

And for the two making the very expensive alpaca and angora slippers, I expect you to send me a picture to post!

More on the lecture tomorrow. . . but at least make a trip to Stitches to see the vendors, and take a free knitting class. I think that there are classes for fee still open and you can check at knittinguniverse.com to see if it is still possible to register - I'm not sure, so please check before you go!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Wasn't that fun last night with Sally Melville and pasta? I enjoyed our table talk and look forward to keeping up with your blog. As for the slippers, right now they look as if they were made for a giant, but oh so soft! Will send you a picture after felting and embellishing.
Janet said…
great - glad to hear from you!