Knitty Gritty!

Yesterday was a most amazing and fun day... taping of my (meaning I'm a knitster) episode of Knitty Gritty!

Filming was in Burbank and "call" was first thing in the morning. I had the good fortune to have two really fun knitster colleages.

Sarah of Hunzer's blog (who flew in from Minnesota for taping).



and Etta



(Etta is displaying the challenging emotions that can be called forth when working with laceweight!!)

We started off the morning just hanging out in the very (not) glamorous green room and waiting for the first episode to tape. I had the good fortune to briefly meet Lisa Shobhana Mason the author of YarnPlay who was the guest on the first episode taped. She has a fun picture of herself with Vicky Howell from her taping on her blog today.

Just before they finished taping the first episode, they let Sarah, Etta, and I go into taping so we could check things out, learn the ropes, and also be ready to quickly swap places with the first set of knitsters. It was cool to see the process.

Then it was our turn. They shoot the episode in sequence so we started with the knitsters introductions with Vicki. The hello, how are yous, tell us some brief thoughts about the projects. That's act 1.

For the middle part of the show, Etta, Sarah, and I just got to hang out, knit, and chat amongst ourselves while the guest did the demo.

Our guest was the talented Tricia Waddell from Interweave Press. She was demonstrating projects from an upcoming book, Lace Style by Pam Allen and Ann Budd. It's due out in February and from the projects she brought along, looks to be very interesting.

Here's a "caught in the moment" photo of the action as seen from the knitsters' couch.




The taping ends with act 4, the conversation with the knitsters about their projects. It will be interesting to see what this looks like in the final episode. I did get to show off my finished project, a ruffle to attach to a skirt.






It was definitely a do-able project for me (more so than swallowtail) probably because you knit it across the short length. A 12 row repeat that you just do the number of times you need to fit around the skirt. We finished up taping with some fun shots... that's mostly lots of laughing and joking around that they cut into the episode and use as background images. Fun stuff.

But wait, I've left out a crucial piece of information. Lunch.

During the middle of our taping we took a lunch break and guess who I got to meet?

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee the Yarn Harlot herself!! Those of you who follow her blog know that she was demonstrating her sock recipe from Knitting Rules, one of the books that helped to give me confidence before I started my first sock/stocking. I had assumed that she taped the day before so didn't expect her to be around. Much to my delight she was the guest for the third episode of the day.

Cookie of Knitters Anonymous who designed the Pomatomus sock was also there doing rehearsals for her show which tapes today (Thursday). She's fabulous, will be demonstrating a beautiful sock as well, and has some real skills when it comes to designing!

Look a group photo.



That's me, Ann (a talented photographer from Minneapolis who came down to LA for taping with Sarah), Sarah, Cookie, Stephanie, and Etta.

Pretty cool hmm?

To make things even better, the Knitty Gritty producers and staff let me stay to watch Stephanie tape her show! Cookie, Wendy (who came to help out Stephanie and was super nice) and I just lurked in the background and watched.

Here's a peek.



Cookie took lots of fabulous photos which I'm sure will turn up eventually.

Stephanie did a fabulous job (and looked fabulous)! I'm looking forward to seeing that episode as well as Cookie's sock episode when they come out.

All and all, a great day!
Joy, thanks for letting me be a knitster and for making the experience so fun and easy!
Knit on everyone!