I had a lot of fun at the Represent event! David and I left work early and took the train up to the city. As I was bouncing on the seat in excitement, I was thinking about how cool it was that I had found a hobby I could get this excited about. I kind of feel sorry for those who don't have such a hobby.
We got to the Fashion Institute of Technology about an hour early for the Knitting Lab tour.
I noticed a few other knitters sitting outside the door. As I was knitting on my Hana sweater, a design student walked by and said "Oh my God, are you knitting that?" I proudly replied "Yes!", but she had already walked on, which made me think it was more of a derisive than an interested question. Oh, well.
As we got closer to the tour time, I got to talk with Christine. We have a lot in common... Socks that Rock, sock knitting, different philosophies on knitting. It was fun chatting with her and her mom. Eventually, the tour got started.
The knitting machines were huge! The first one we looked at knit at a gauge of 28 stitches per inch! It knit in the round, and it was a kind of "dumb" machine. The needles were locked in, so you couldn't increase or decrease the number of stitches once you got started. One rotation of the machine would knit 12 rows.
When I was standing next to the machine, I could look up and see the spools of yarn overhead.
There was a "smarter" machine that could handle knitting in the round, increases, decreases, cables, and probably other things as well. There was a class in session, and we got to see students using this big computerized machine. The tour guide said that there's a constant problem of "disconnect' between the technicians who understand how the machine works, and the creative people who want to utilize it. Being a computer scientist, I found this very intruiging and I'm planning to look into this more. Maybe this would be a perfect job for me!
We also got to see students at work on the more manual machines. These were set up to knit for them, but they had to slide a device over the needles for them to engage.
This girl had the beginnings of a beautiful sweater in orange and purple. The spool of plastic to the right of her scissors was actually her color pattern.
A lot of you wondered how I could leave the place of wonderful yarn. Although I couldn't stop staring at the gorgeous wall of thread, it really was more like thread than yarn. Very, very thin (28 stitches per inch, remember). There wasn't the textural element going on, which is quite necessary for me.
It sure was a sight to behold.
During the tour, I got to meet Jessica. She was very fun to talk with, and she sat with me and David in the auditorium as well. I was also a bad blogger and didn't get a picture with her! Next time! I also briefly got to meet Minty before Stephanie came out. And I (kind of) met Juno when she was collecting money for Knitters Without Borders.
Stephanie is as funny in person as she is in her books. She was wearing her Bohus sweater, and it looked great on her! She spoke a lot about the discrimination and stereotyping that knitters face, with a lot of her own funny experiences. The last 45 minutes was supposed to be a Q&A session, but there were very few questions asked. Mostly there were testimonials and stories about the lengths people went to attend this event. We knitters are certainly a diverse bunch.
When Stephanie paused in her speech, you could hear hundreds of knitting needles clicking together. I love that. Knit on!
Thank you for this! Now I kind of feel like I got to go afterall. (I'm so glad Lady Harlot wore her Bohus.)
Posted by: Jean | March 25, 2007 at 12:37 AM
Thanks for sharing! Living in California made the Represent impossible for me to attend, but I was very curious to know how it went.
Posted by: Brenda | March 25, 2007 at 01:39 AM
sounds like you had a GREAT time! i'm sad to have missed it but it wasn't possible for me. the knitting lab sounds so cool.
Posted by: jody | March 25, 2007 at 08:13 AM
Looks like a fabulous time!
Posted by: knittingphilistine | March 25, 2007 at 09:33 AM
Man, we never get anything like that down here (Australia)!
Posted by: Nora | March 25, 2007 at 11:32 PM
You got some great pictures! I really loved that sound in the auditorium too. That was certainly a uniting feeling!
Posted by: Jessica | March 26, 2007 at 09:05 AM
Wow! What a fantastic trip. I'm envious.
Posted by: tiennie | March 26, 2007 at 08:07 PM
Thanks for the Represent recap (hurrah Bohus! hurrah knitting lab!) - I couldn't Represent, but I kind of feel like I was there, thanks to your post.
Posted by: Ariel | March 27, 2007 at 08:24 PM
Yes, it was lots of fun to see the Yarn Harlot again. She's very funny!
Posted by: David | March 28, 2007 at 11:33 PM