This past weekend was Vogue Knitting LIVE in Chicago—my eighth VK LIVE! It was a busy four days of teaching, chatting with knitters (lots of new people and familiar faces too!), doing sales in the marketplace, and transporting delicate twigs back and forth across the city.
As usual, I was too busy to remember to take enough photos, but here are a few highlights.
My tiny knitting class Thursday night all showed up in similar outfits, so we just had to take a class photo.
One of my students showed up drunk, so he had to leave early.
But seriously, it was a great group of knitters, and we had a blast knitting tiny gnomes and making weird gnome jokes throughout!
My Friday morning toy design class was so much fun too. Everyone took a turn sketching out their toy, and we all talked about how the design could be executed using various techniques. The toy concepts ranged from a cat pillow to a knitted Audrey II! The classroom wall was full of exciting ideas by the end.
Friday night and for the rest of the weekend, I could be found hanging out with my artwork in the marketplace. Here’s how we ended up displaying the twig sculptures.
My table (which I forgot to take a picture of, of course) was right next to this, so I got a kick out of hearing the attendees’ reactions to my twigs and their inhabitants—there were lots of squeals of “cute!,” and every once in a while someone would react with shock to the twiggin who’s getting eaten on my new piece.
(I’ll show more photos of the biggest twig soon for those who didn’t see it in person!)
There were so many cool things to see in the marketplace (including lots of other amazing fiber art), but one highlight that I actually photographed was getting my portrait illustrated by Jana Kinsman!
Jana was right across the room for me, doing everyone’s portrait for free! I love the concept of her Doodle Booth, and I love that the VK LIVE people thought to bring her in.
And lastly, the Great Tiny Pumpkin Hunt on Sunday was a success! Nine out of ten tiny pumpkins were found within the first two hours, and the last one came in at the end of the day, brought by the vendor whose booth it was at. Apparently people had been walking by the little pumpkin all day and just not seeing it! I tried to get every pumpkin finder’s picture, but somehow ended up with just seven.
They all seemed pretty happy to keep their pumpkins and get a copy of Huge & Huggable Mochimochi.
Oh, and maybe 50 people told me that they saw the interview in the Tribune! And several even said that it was the way they found out about VK LIVE! That was awesome to hear.
Thank you to the VK LIVE team and all the knitters who came out for an excellent weekend of fun and inspiration!
