Suck It and See

I giggle at the possibilities of hits with the title of this post! It was a catch phrase uttered by both of the Men of Colour, Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably. It's origins are not so naughty, it was about sampling a candy flavor (or, I should say, flavour) to see if you liked it. We chose a post card, and selected colors to knit a piece of intarsia. My swatch is under Brandon's hand, or in the other photo, on the left, fourth from top. I actually chose my post card based on what yarns I brought, but we were all seated in a circle on the periphery of the room, with all of our yarn on the floor, for people to cut bits as they needed it. We used Kaffe's pattern Tumbling Blocks. The exercise was about relationships between colors when you place them next to each other, which I do often with my Lucky Penny work. If a relationship wasn't working, you were to change colors and just keep going, no frogging allowed. I confess that I did frog a few rows on day two when I missed a part of the chart. I was going for sharp contrasts, because I really wanted the blocks pattern to be clear, which Brandon may have described as "aggressive." Most of his commentary was hilarious, and some people's pieces were described as "dried toast" or other charming descriptions. A few students really got into it with Brandon, as I heard the words "I could argue with you about this until the cows come home." These picture are from close to the end of day one. Tune in tomorrow for more fun, from day two of the workshop.