Knit Out 2009

As expected, I spent most of the day today at the Mall of America attending the 2009 Knit Out. Walking into the Mall of America gives me immediate sensory overload on a normal day so you would think this event would have pushed me over the edge. Instead, I found the non-sales environment of the Knit Out refreshing. My experience was limited to looking, touching and learning without any choice of buying and somehow this made me able to block out the insanity of the environment.

The event afforded me the opportunity to learn a little bit about machine knitting. I had never actually seen a knitting machine, much less learned how they worked so our stop at the Machine Knitting Guild's booth was immensely informative. I am not anticipating converting to machine knitting anytime soon but I am glad to have had some of my curiosity satisfied.

Me, Gillian, Heidi, Brianna, Carrie

I attended the event with some knitters from the CRC Knits group. I've just started knitting with them, so it was fun to spend a good chunk of the day on a knitting field trip while getting to know them better. For the record, we do not knit with Red Heart.

Besides the good company, my favorite things from the day were the knitting fashion show, seeing sample projects from the Knit One Below book and a demo of the knit one below technique, a sock yarn mitered square blanket (holy time consuming!), and seeing the new LB Collection in person. The LB Collection Organic Wool colors are wonderfully saturated and the whole collection of colors work well together.

Mitered Square Sock Yarn Blanket

We also got to take a group photo with the Lion Brand Yarn mascot. What more could you ask for?!