Live from New York

Spectacular. Satisfying. Sumptuous. I’ve stopped writing full sentences. Being in New York this week has sparked something like a mini explosion in my head … all this extraordinarily inspiring “activity”. Whether it’s scrambled eggs or pizza or shopping or architecture or whatever… it just seems like everything in New York has the volume turned up and polished to a gleaming shine. I’m really happy we had the chance to run free through the city this past week, eating our way through each little neighbourhood.

I’m also very grateful to have had the chance to speak at Knitty City on Thursday evening. The store is warm and full with such an amazing community or “family” feeling to it. And of course, it’s great to meet the knitters I’ve only ever known virtually!

The afternoon before the “Young Designer” talk, I got to meet and chat with Maria from Subway Knits and record a little something for her podcast. Hopefully we’ll be able to hear a little bit of that soon!

Today is also the first day of Vogue Knitting Live and throughout the Hilton, there are old and new Vogue Knitting magazine covers blown up and arranged with dress forms and yarn samples. It’s been a busy, scheduled-packed day that started with a design class at 8:30 am with Mari Lynn Patrick. She has personally written over 12,000 knitwear design patterns in her incredible career and showed us gorgeous, finely finished knit samples that date back to 1973.

Nicky Epstein gave a lunchtime lecture about her design work over the years and 30 minutes later, I was running off to my afternoon class with Debbie Bliss that I shared with Pixie Purls, the designer and photographer behind Petite Purls. It was great meeting and chatting with Brandy/Pixie… strange how meeting old school knit bloggers feels like reuniting with high school classmates… you kind of know them but just haven’t connected in so long. It’s a good feeling. Later at the market preview, Sooze from Knitty City snapped a pic of me bumping into Jared from Brooklyn Tweed for the first time.

Honestly, the most wonderful thing about seeing all the so-called Knitterati is just seeing how different and unique everyone is. Everyone is just doing their “thing”… whatever it is that they love to do. And they do it in their own unique style. Back to back classes with Nicky and Debbie showed me how incredibly different their personalities are… and their knitwear designs express their personalities perfectly. Something for everyone. I love it.

Tomorrow, I’m in the Yarn Harlot‘s speed knitting class. Off to sleep off my reception night vodkas and late night “secret” burger.