sock it to me, cleveland

when linda and i loaded up her car on friday for our trip to cleveland, we expected to have lots of fun on our first event adventure together, but i don’t think either of us knew how MUCH fun we’d be treated to at the completely charming river colors studio in lakewood, owned by erika gadomski.

we live fairly close to cleveland, a wonderfully interesting, eclectic, and historical city, but i have to admit, i don’t get up there enough—a too-busy schedule right here at home makes me lazy about exploring even the closest attractions in the wee pockets of spare time i have (it’s the plight of many professionals in our industry, i’m afraid!).

and i’m always sorry for that after i do manage a visit—cleveland is full of fun neighborhoods, restaurants, and, well, knitters.

erika’s 8-year-old shop, now a thriving part of the cleveland knitting community, has a solid base of friendly, loyal customers who appreciate the relaxing environment and the variety of offerings available.

a couple of sitting areas and a large table are available for knitters to sit and work—these spots are filled several time per week with scheduled “social knitting” groups.

the shop is housed in a large space, in which erika has sculpted an arrangement of smaller, more intimate areas infused with her funky-stylish sensibility for grouping found objects, samples, and products with fresh imagination. her own favorite aspects of the fiber life are evident, yet invite the browser to indulge their point of view. this feeling is extended through erika’s online shop as well—anyone can visit.

yarns are bountiful, of course—both commercial brands and indie dyers are represented a-plenty.

there is actually a whole room just loaded with sock yarns

and then there is the wide selection of books

it’s nice to see a shop provide the space and selection for good book browsing these days when understandably, many shops cannot. good to know too, that there are communities where book buying is still strong—you can’t have one without the other.

the shop also keeps a changing schedule of classes and events going, and that’s where we fit in this weekend.

linda and i arrived friday evening for a social gathering and trunk show. we set up a variety of shawl and accessory samples and invited attendees to explore the display while chatting about the patterns and knitting in general. erika provided amazing food and wine to fuel the party. it was a wonderful evening of getting to know each other—so much so that i forgot entirely about taking pictures (and that’s really too bad; it all looked so pretty and everyone was so much fun!).

and our classes were excellent fun, too—on saturday morning we started with a marie antoinette sock workshop. arlene and her posse, pam and brooks, came all the way from kentucky, cincinnati, and columbus to join the fun. it’s always nice to see arlene—i run into her at lots of local events.

you can see how hard everyone is working here—you could have run a generator off of the brain activity.

linda had her first chance to participate in and observe my classes throughout the weekend, which was educational on a variety of levels, haha. everybody loved her (but i loved her the most—it turns out that having another knitter as a roadie is way cool).

fran made a whole weekend out of attending—she has very limited time off, but decided that taking this series of classes would be her vacation. she is terribly pleased with her sock, which was looking very good by the end of the day.

i can’t help but enjoy her pleasure in the weekend. the back story here is that fran spends most of her time looking after her 92-year-old mom, who is no slouch by any means—she recently took up knitting herself and has decided to knit shawls for the hospital as her personal knitting quest. fran was on the lookout during class for little tidbits she could use to help her mom advance her knitting skills.

fran and linda, by the way, are both knitting their maries with madelinetosh tosh sock, which is sold at river colors online. fran is knitting with colorway ms. taylor and linda with colorway silver fox (which will look like a platinum sculpture, once it’s knit up). it’s my first up-close view of this yarn in use and i’m terribly impressed (though sadly, a yarn without some nylon doesn’t work for most of my sock knitting needs).

while everyone else worked away on their maries, i worked on my new sock for david. and let me tell you, this was the absolute perrrfect way to get my sock mojo back in gear.

the texture is exactly what i needed—a totally addictive pattern. i knit on it in the car on the way up, i knit on it as i had time during classes and by saturday evening i had half a sock

i worked on it at breakfast the next morning too, at the blackbird bakery, which shares a building with the shop and has the most amazing breads and coffee

and again in the car on the way home. it’s amazing how much sock you can get done when you actually knit—i am zooming down the homestretch now.

the second one will be an excellent traveling companion to rhinebeck.
of course the yarn—tanis fiber arts purple label cashmere sock—plays no small part in the allure of this knit. it’s so delicious that to describe it would push this post into the realm of adult content. so i’ll settle for a photo snuggle instead

there you go—push your face right into that.

the weekend retreat continued with advanced lace class on saturday afternoon, during which everyone made a little sampler triangle shawl—or started one, anyway.

this was a lot of fun, despite how hard everyone was working. i got to meet several long-time readers of my blog and chat with participants who will also be taking classes when i teach in january on the other side of cleveland for the northcoast knitting guild.

i got a little bit of other knitting done too, but i think i’ll save that for the next post (i have to go check the garden and do my bookkeeping yet).

we got home tired, but happy last night; so glad we had a chance to spend time in cleveland, but so sorry too, that it zipped by so quickly.

david was there to greet us from the roof when we arrived—i think he makes much better headway on his projects when i’m not home, haha.

now it’s time to get ready for the next trip out—rhinebeck HO! this one will be for fun, but we have work to do before i go.

david has printed up stacks of patterns for the briar rose booth and the spirit trail booth which need to be sleeved and packed for the trip. i’ll be back before i go though, with at least one more pre-trip post.

when she dropped me off at the house, linda handed me a little bag with this intriguing nettle yarn i’d been drooling over at the shop, but forgot to buy (isn’t she great??). i need to find out more about it, but i’m completely blown away to actually have some, thank you linda!