Milestone

I have reached another milestone. No, it's not my birthday. I have accomplished one of my life goals.

I received news yesterday that I passed the third level of The Knitting Guild Association Master Hand Knitting Program!

This is what the reviewer said in her letter:

"The swatches are all well done, and I am impressed by the improvements in the entrelac and intarsia swatches in particular. They are two of the nicest examples I have seen, and the tail weaves in the intarsia swatch are excellent."

"Congratulations! You have successfully completed all of the requirements for the Master Hand Knitting Program. You are now a fully qualified Master Knitter...."

Willow is now a Master Knitter!

[Willow is also really frustrated with blogger because bad blogger won't show her spaces/rows between paragraphs. Does anyone else have this problem with blogger?]

This is the entrelac swatch the reviewer referred to. Entrelac used to be called the basket weave stitch, for obvious reasons.

Intarsia patterns require the knitter to switch out different colors (balls) of yarn for stitches without carrying the second strand of yarn behind the knitting. The most common way intarsia is used is in argyle socks.

You can imagine that with all the colors being switched around that there are a lot of yarn ends to be woven into the back of the knitted piece. The best way to do the weaving is to use the duplicate stitch. If the weaving is done carefully you can't even see where the ends are woven in.

Needless to say, I'm really excited! I have been working on this program for nearly eight years. It's true that I have lost my father, moved three times, married off three children, and gained a grandson during the eight years, so some years I haven't worked all that hard on it. It feels so very good to have finally finished what I started.

What's next?