France, Chapter 2: Who was there

Our tour was lead by Kristeen Griffin-Grimes, a.k.a French Girl. Her husband Phil and son Deva kept us on the road and organized. I don't have good photos of Phil and Deva because they were alway on the move.

Our classes were lead by Annie Modisett, a.k.a. the Knitting Heretic. She's the one in the foreground. She is just about the wittiest teacher I ever had. We laughed almost as much as we knitted. We learned about combination knitting, using a chart for lace, cabling without a cable needle, a super way to bind off, entrelac, and a really nice bobble technique.

We were pleased to meet Miriam Tegels, the World's Fastest Knitter, a la Guinness Book of World records. She is from Holland and is a delightful person. She gave us a demonstration of her technique.

My beautiful daughter Amy was there, of course. I just had to post this photo. It is so lovely, it almost makes me weep. It was taken in Pezenas, which you will learn about in another post.

Amy's business partner Sheryl was there too. This photo was taken in Collioure, a town on the Meditteranean.

Tune in next time for Chapter 3, Where we went.

France, Chapter 1: Where we stayed

We stayed in a lovely bed and breakfast called La Vigneronne. It is in a tiny village called Faugeres and is a working winery as well as a central retail wine cellar for vineyards in the immediate area. See the two little windows at the top? That was our suite. You could leave the window open even though there was no screen because there were no bugs!

The lovely arched entrance in the second picture is to the kitchen area. We never went in there, but lovely things came out. Do you see the building extension coming out below our window in the first photo? That is where we ate breakfast everyday. We would wake up to the sound of someone crunching across the gravel from the kitchen to the table, carrying our croissants, bread, yogurt, cheese, jellies, juice, and COFFEE! We ate dinner 4 times at La Vigneronne and everyone agreed that they were the best meals we had while in France. There were at least 2 different local wines with each dinner, one with the appetizer (I can't spell the French way to say that) and one with the meal. The food was always exquisite and dessert was tres bon. The best dessert I had was fresh figs covered with a vanilla cream sauce which was incredibly delicious.



I will have to post my report of our trip in chapters since Blogger says 5 photos is the limit per post. Tune in again.

Bon Jour

Did I tell you that my daughter, Amy, her business partner, Sheryl, and I were going to France? Did I tell you that we were going to be having knitting classes with Annie Modisett, the Knitting Heretic? Oh, gee, maybe I forgot to mention it earlier. Sorry.

Oh my gosh!!! We had a fabulous (and I mean that in the best way - inside story here) time. I will not even attempt to post pictures or describe what it was like while I am in my jet-lagged state. I can only refer you to Annie Modisett's blog which she posted from France. There is no way I could approach how well she has illustrated and described our adventure. Please take a look at www.modeknit.com/blog. You might recognize some folks on the post titled the Miracle of Mirth, especially on the Wednesday section.

And OMG, we met Miriam Tegels, the Guiness Book of World Records record holder for the world's fastest knitter. You can check her out at http://www.speedknitter.nl/.

I need to go sleep some more now. More later.