Norah Gaughan fixed my slug.

One of the things I really enjoyed about Knit Camp was being able to spend time with smart people.  Not just smart knitters, although they were there in abundance, but all round smart people.

Norah Gaughan  scores highly on both counts and I was lucky enough to have a whole day of teaching from her. There was a morning lecture about Knitting Nature and an afternoon practical, making hexagons and octagons. Most people that is, made octagons and hexagons. I managed to make a complete fool of myself by misreading the simplest of directions and making something resembling the sea slugs that live in the darkest depths of the ocean.  Norah very kindly took the odd looking shape and fixed it to look a little less slug like. Regardless of her knitting genius,  I fear it will never lie flat like the other hexagons.

One of the interesting things that I  found out about Knitting Nature is that the samples were sized to fit people of non- model sizes. The proof?  Me wearing the Basalt Tank from the book, a piece I would never have considered knitting until I saw how it fit a person of my shape. Of course I will have to brush up on my hexagon knitting skills too. This was taken in the bathroom next to the class. Possibly the nicest graffitt I've ever seen.

I went away from the class  inspired, enthused and the owner of a beautiful alpaca cat toy.  Oh, and desperately wanting an I Pad.

So many stories to tell.

Almost a month since I posted, I can hardly believe it. So many good things have happened that I will take a couple of posts to cover them all rather than bombard the internet with a mammoth tale all at once.

First to appear was Mary Jane Mucklestone, all the way from Maine and en route to Knit Camp via Shetland.  We are old friends from the internet but this was our first meeting in real life.  Thankfully we really did like each other and spent too short a time knitting, talking, eating the local delicacies and hanging out with Magnus.

Then it was off to Bridge of Allan to stay with a friend who has the most lovely house. Helene had kindly offered to put me up while Knit Camp was on in nearby Stirling.  Helene is very interested in ironmongers and has a website devoted to them. If you have a story to tell about your local ironmonger, wherever in the world,  please get on to the website to share your tale.

By the way, the two lovely portraits of Mary Jane and Helene were taken by  Lena Karlsson from Stockholm. More about her in another post!