Keeping You in Stitches Retreat

Practicing Magic Loop knitting

Well folks, like my fellow blogger WillyG, I am a bad blogger.  It has been quite a while since my last blog and I have been quite busy with gift projects, a retreat, and a design to be published.  This entry will be about the retreat.  On April 29th and 30th we held the first annual (hopefully) Keeping You in Stitches Retreat.  To say it was a blast would be an understatement.  To prepare for it I have been emailing and writing to some of my Knitting Contacts for several months to get ready.  Claudia Morris of Southern Purls in Ahoskie, was our yarn and notions enabler.  Heather, my wife, and I were the teachers/planners. The Retreat was held at the Barnes House Bed & Breakfast in Murfreesboro.

My wife bought and made crowns for us to wear in honor of the Royal Wedding which took place that morning.  We felt like the princes and princesses of knitting.  I was in my element as knitting teacher.  we began with a Cabled Coffee cozy designed by me.  Click the name to get the pattern.  Some of the attendees had not done cables before, so I chose a stitch pattern which had twists in both directions.  We worked on those for a couple of hours, then retired to the parlor for some sit & stitch time.  Around 11 pm we left for the evening  to get some rest.

Blocking our coffee cozys.

The next morning Craig, our host with the most, treated us to breakfast before our knitting began.  After breakfast we felted our cozys in the washer and set them up to block. Then it was off on a field trip to the Alpaca Farm.  Three Hawk Alpacas is less than 5 miles from Main Street in Murfreesboro.  Anita our host was kind enough to give us a tour, answer questions and let us interact with Callie, the friendliest Alpaca I have met.  (I have blogged about her before when we visited with my kids.  After our Q & A session we visited Anita's shop and several attendees purchased some lovely alpaca fiber to take home and work up.  Claudia even bought a cone of brown &                  natural/white.  We are dying to see this worked up.

Callie enjoying attention.

The afternoon brought us a great lunch from Tavern 125 in Mufreesboro.  We had placed our orders the night before and Heather picked up lunch for us to enjoy after the Alpaca Farm visit.  There were Reubens and Salads, fries and more.  Lunch was wonderful.   After lunch we were joined by another participant and began our Entrelac class.  We began a scarf, Basic Entrelac Scarf, from a pattern by Lisa Shroyer.  She very graciously gave us permission to use her pattern for our retreat.  Everyone caught on quickly and was amazed at the results.  It was a fun class and easy to teach with skilled knitters.

Tom practicing Broomstick Lace.

We took a break from Entrelac and Heather tried her hand at teaching with Broomstick lace.   Again we were making a scarf, in cotton,  with a pattern from Naztazia, Broomstick Lace Scarf.  Check the link for pattern and you tube tutorials.  I decided to try my hand at this technique as well (I can crochet, but prefer knitting).  It is working very well and will be a late Mother's Day Gift for my mom.  We all finished up around 5 pm.  Some had to say good bye for the evening.  Tom, Ilene, and I went to dinner at Napoli's Italian restaurant.  I tried the Portabello Ravioli for the first time.  It was fabulous.  We all knitted until 9 and retired to our homes, agreeing that the first retreat was a success. 

My cousin's wife makes cakes.  Her business is called, "The Icing on the Cake."  Well we had this made for the retreat (we ate on it all weekend).  The icing on our retreat was coming back to the B & B for breakfast with Tom and Craig on Sunday morning before seeing Tom off to the Triangle area of NC.  We are already brainstorming ideas for next year and hope to have more goodies, students, and knitting fun! 





A special thank you goes out to the following Donors for our Retreat: 

Skacel Collection, Inc
Rainy Days and Wooly Dogs -- Goth Socks Yarn
Love of Knitting Magazine
XRX, Inc.
Southern Purls
Yearning for Yarn
Beech Springs Alpacas
Three Hawk Alpacas

Each of the above companies donated prizes, patterns, or other items so that each participant left with a "swag" of items to enjoy their knitting.  Thanks for your donations.  Well, that is my update for now.  I plan to let you know about a new knitting shop and show off some Finished Objects in the next couple of Blogs.  Happy Knitting!

Seattle-Day 3-Dye Another Day

Low tide at Dumas Bay (Puget Sound)

My feet in water from the Pacific

Dipping the fiber in the pot of indigo dye

Separating the fiber to ensure oxidation

all the things used for natural dyeing (the cloth was dyed with mud)

(Yes the title is a play on words from the song by Madonna.)  The weather in Seattle was much as I expected:  rain, fog, a little dreary, but not all day long.  There were some bright spots and day 3 turned out to be one of them.  We had the least rain on Saturday.  I had no classes that morning so was able to get some much needed rest, knitting, and picture taking done.  After lunch that day we endured horrendous traffic to get to our field trip.  The trip was to Earthhues, a natural dyeing studio.  I spent an enjoyable but long ride in the truck with Geoff, Joe, and Stephen.  I am used to being in a completely different state when I spend an hour in a vehicle, or at least in another major city.  The hour spent in the truck was well worth it.  We were introduced to all the natural things that they use to dye fabrics, yarns, and other medium without using any chemicals.  The colors were brilliant and I wanted some of everything, but we were there to indigo dye.  I had my LYS, Southern Purls outside of Ahoskie, NC, order some lace weight dyeable yarn before I left for Seattle.  What I received was the softest baby alpaca in a natural color from Plymouth Yarns Dye for Me.  I have not begun to work it up yet but it dyed the most gorgeous color very close to Carolina blue, appropriate don't you think.  It was a long afternoon but well worth the trip.  Kathy, our "cruise director," was very gracious and kind, answering all of our questions and helped us prepare our fiber, dip it in the dye, rinse it when we were done, and told us about things in the shop.  I did get some more of their dyed yarn.  They had mini hanks of yarn dyed in various colors and ranging in length from 10-20 yards.  I chose 5 hanks in various colors and fibers to practice some new knitting stitch patterns and create scarves for my daughter's American Girl dolls.  We returned for dinner and voting on the Best in Show hand knitted items we shared on Friday Night.  Kevin won with his wonderfully created Wrap based on The Little Prince.  We were then treated to a pajama party with a short film, featuring WonderMike, on the Knitting Community and Yarn Bombing, Young Frankenstein and Hairspray to finish.  I finally went to bed after midnight having worked on my orange hat to near completion.  As I write this I am missing my new friends on the West Coast and want to knit with you some more.  I have been inspired to design and am working on my first real pattern at the moment.  Wish me luck as I am going to submit it this weekend.  Day 4 and the Journey home coming soon!

Seattle- West Coast Men's Fall Knitting Retreat- Day 1

wild blackberries on the side of the street

Shoppes of Bainbridge

Streets of Bainbridge Island

Another view of the Grounds at Dumas Bay.  This could be seen from the window of our conference room.

The grounds at Dumas Bay

View of  Seattle from Ferry

Churchmouse

Another view from the Ferry

So I arrived in Seattle the day before the Men's Fall Knitting Retreat (MFKR) began.  It was a very long day as I had a 2.5 hour drive to the Airport, then about 7 hours on the plane.  I had a great deal of time to knit that day.  I knit in the truck with my dad driving to the airport, while I waited for the first leg of the flight, during the 2 hour layover in Charlotte, and on the 5 hour flight to Seattle.  I was so tired when I got to Seattle that I had to decline an invitation for dinner and company from some of the other men who were attending.  I got a great night's sleep and a little exercise the next morning.  Kerry picked me up from the hotel and we got breakfast before we picked up Kurt at the airport.  Then we all went to Bainbridge Island for a couple of hours.  Churchmouse was the most awesome yarn shop I have had the opportunity in which to shop in several years.  I got some beaded silk yarn (for my lovely wife), cotton bamboo for a baby hat, and knitting needles that I needed for my own hat project.  Kurt got a bite to eat at an organic food store and then we headed off to All Points Yarn.  We visited with Morgan for about an hour then headed to Dumas Bay Retreat Center for a weekend of fun.  Dinner was great and then I had Spinning Class with Michael (not stationary biking).  It was great to learn the in's and out's of making my own yarn.  I brought back about  8 ounces of wool top to practice spinning.   After I spun I went downstairs to check out my swag bag.  It was a drawstring backpack from Skacel that was loaded with yarn,  a men's pattern book from Noro yarns, the brand new "Entre to Entrelac" book from XRX, inc. (who sponsored the scholarship my wife won for me), and a notebook full of patterns by up and coming designers I have admired for quite some time.  And I forgot, after dinner we had a raffle and I won a huge hank of lace weight alpaca from Briar Rose.  It is in dark natural masculine colors.  What a great evening.  I sat up and knit with several of the guys while another class was going on.  Then it was off to bed.  More to come on day 2 tomorrow.  Stay tuned.