Lew and Gene!

Kristi and I love Lew and Gene! They helped man the Lacy Knitters Guild booth and are wonderful! Really they were the main attraction. There was a constant crowd of women around them. They did a demonstration on lacy knitting, and here are the highlights.

Gene Beugler and a Frost Flowers and Leaves shawl. He said he found it in the attic. Can you believe he'd forgotten about it? Apparently he must have knit three of them. These were knit on size 3 needles. I think Knitters magazine requested the green yarn and larger sized needle for the original pattern. I can't imagine Gene using such a large needle as a 6.

Gene is awesome. Here he is showing some of the lace he's knit.

Lew moves so fast, you can't see his knitting, but I assure you it's beautiful. He's knitting some out of print Marianne Kinzel pattern.

We also learned some techniques. Lew demonstrated how he likes to join his yarn which I believe is the same as the Russian join (though he says it's German). And Gene show us how he casts on in the round. His method is similar to the Emily Ocker method, but he makes more loops to begin. We got to listen to them critiquing some lace pieces which was very interesting. There are so many improvements to make! I hope I am half as good as they are when I'm their age.

As for yarn buying, K and I will have to post about that later. But I can say that Gene snagged some qiviut/merino/silk blend laceweight. He's been wanting it for years, but such a yarn didn't exist until now. (At least not to his knowledge). It was a mere $200/skein. I'll try to get a picture of it tomorrow if he hasn't already packed it away into a safe special place. I can not wait to see what he does with it because I'm sure it will be spectacular.