end of season blues....

The last of our participants have packed their bags and left the glorious early October sunshine down here in south west France to return home with their knitting - the place seems very quiet indeed.  Marion Foale was a delight and her first workshop with Les Soeurs Anglaises was unanimously voted a great success; unaccustomed as she is to teaching groups, she came with body blocks for everyone, together with patterns and samples .... and lots and lots of ideas and techniques and tips which she enthusiastically shared.  

Participants with more finely tuned knitting skills, were shown by Marion how to design sweaters and skirts and hats to fit their various shapes and sizes perfectly  A few increases here, a few dart decreases there and hey presto, an item that looked as good on as in our imagination.  More maths than we've done since leaving school (thank goodness for calculators), but all to good effect and great for the brain cells.

We are so looking forward to Marion returning next year, if she can fit us in her already busy fashion business schedule.

Her are some more photographs of the final days of the workshop...

..marion fits the bill....

Our final workshop of the season, Knitting: Chapter and Verse started this morning and it was back to the drawing board for 12 enthusiastic and energetic Marion Foale fans from as far afield as Chicago and   Germany.  

The idea of learning some professional knitting tricks from one of the fashion industry's icons was more than even Julie Arkell, another regular workshop leader at Les Soeurs, could resist.

Marion's scrummy stitch samples which show how she calculates the requisite sizes, wool thickness, needles and for a particular design.

Julie working out, with Marion's help, exactly how many decreases she needs to make for the skirt of one of her creatures. 

Participants concentrating on the tension squares which will indicate how they proceed with the projects and exercises Marion has given them.

Plenty of end of the first day questions......

Luckily, Carol arrives with supplies to feed the hungry knitters.