Friday, June 24, 2011

Natalie Servant

Yesterday I had a visit from Natalie Servant, a designer of amazing lace shawls. We'd communicated online, but had never met before. Both of us have designs featured as KALs at Janie H. Knits this summer. Natalie's website is here. She has an engineering and high tech background and it shows, both in her designs and in her website (I'm so envious!) Many of her designs are inspired by architecture and art deco.
We walked to a restaurant a few blocks away, where Natalie spun while our meal was prepared.



Before yesterday, I had little interest in spinning (I won't get into my husband's derogatory remarks about "medieval arts"). Now, I'm completely entranced and off to buy a copy of "Respect the Spindle" by Abby Franquemont. Natalie told me that there is now a video version available in addition to the book.




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 Later, Natalie knitted on a shawl while we chatted.
Again, I was wowed. I'm challenged by knitting anything more complicated than a Baktus scarf while talking.




We checked out my stash when we got back to the house. Natalie admits that currently, she has a thing for gold-coloured yarn. She'd already checked out my Ravelry page and knew I favour neutrals when she presented me with this.

540 yards of gorgeous handspun. Quite daunting to come up with the perfect project for it, but have no doubt, I will.