Pop Quiz

Time for a pop quiz. Can you name this knitting designer?

Shouldn't be too difficult if you take a close look at the background of the photo. I took a class from her last month at the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival. For some time, it's been a goal of mine to knit all of her shawl designs. I've done her Sampler Stole from GOL, Violets by the River, Tiger Eye, and the Spider Queen. Yes, that's right...it's Hazel Carter.

She was a very thorough teacher with a delightful accent and terrific sense of humor. The class was on designing Shetland shawls so she had many lovely examples there for us to see. In her patterns she usually suggests soaking the items in a starch solution before blocking. I had never done it because it seemed like it would make the shawl too stiff. However, her examples were very nice and soft, and were all knit out of Shetland cobweb singles yarn, of course.

Besides her patterns, several years ago she also authored a small book on Shetland lace. It is nothing like the Heirloom Knitting book written by Sharon Miller; just a small spiral bound volume with only 50 pages. It does have photos and charts of the most traditional patterns and explains the traditional (and a few modern) methods of construction. It was also very interesting to look through her copy of the Shetland lace book written by Sarah Don and see Hazel's handwritten notes in the margins. Wish that one would be reprinted as I'd love to have a copy of it.

Other than buying Hazel's Shetland book from her, I didn't do much shopping at the festival market. I found some lovely Shetland roving for sale in one of the sheep barns, but unfortunately, they didn't have enough of any one color to use for a sweater (and it didn't dawn at me at the time to spin singles out of 2 colors and then ply them together ), so I purchased 8 ozs. of silver and several more of white and black for maybe FI mittens/hat and then enough Coopworth roving from Hidden Valley Farm to knit a sweater. And, I found some raw Wensleydale from Gray Haven Hills Farm and since I've been having such fun spinning the prepared top dyed by Lisa, I bought a pound to see what it was like to process it myself. The shepherd said to be careful because it was very easy to felt. I'll let you know how it goes.