Webs generously offered to ship all of the yarn I purchased, swag I received and projects I worked on during their totally amazing retreat for free! Since I returned from the East Coast, I've been chomping at the bit to gush all about the retreat but wanted to wait until all of my yarn arrived and it finally all arrived yesterday and the day before. I had $300 in gift certificates to burn so I guess I went a little crazy.
Below is all of the squishy swag each attendee received on the first night of the retreat which included no shortage of groovy kits and free patterns. Not featured are some Rowan and Berrocco kits, samples and free patterns we later received during our lunches.
Aside from the first night where we attended a welcome dinner in a large auditorium at the UMass campus, followed by a cash bar late night knitting lounge, the general format of the retreat for the next 2 days was buffet breakfast at 8 AM during which there was a guest speaker, a 3 hour class, buffet lunch with a guest speaker, another 3 hour class, a break before a buffet dinner on Friday (also with a guest speaker) and a boxed dinner and bused field trip to Webs on Saturday. Every evening there was a cash bar late knitting lounge hosted by Shannon, the owner of Cascade with tons of free door prizes. Incidentally, I didn't win a single door prize although everyone sitting around me seemed to win multiple ones but I'm not complaining at all because SRSLY, I already have WAAAAAYYYY too much yarn!
There were 120 attendees at the event, unsurprisingly 98% of which were older than me and elderly Caucasian women. Most of the guests were from New England. Many travelled together, some were mother-daughter duos. I travelled the 2nd farthest of all the guests, with the farthest travelled being from Salem, OR. I felt like I was probably the most novice knitter there and one of only a handful of "bi-craftual crocheters". I met a ton of wonderful women, many who've been knitting longer than I've been alive and a couple women closer to my age (whom I hope to remain in contact with) that I dined, knitted, drank and giggled my ass off with every day and night.
The first class I took was Fair Isle Fingerless Mitts with Susan B. Anderson. Unfortunately I wasted 1/2 of the class simply trying to figure out how to cast onto DPNs, as I never cast on that way before having only knitted socks with the magic loop technique. Thankfully my instructor was incredibly kind and patient with my amateur skills but before I went to bed that night, I tore out my work, cast on for magic loop and all I can really say is why the hectic hadn't I attempted colorwork sooner?! In my sheer ignorance, I was was so fearful about dipping my finger in the floats but now that I've learned what to do, how to do it and I've made the choice to hold one color in each hand, I can really see a rainbow of colorwork in my future. This was also my first time knitting a mitt and as you can see, I got a little carried away with the corrugated rib on the cuff but now that I've finished one mitt, I am feeling many positives mitt vibes. I hope to fly through the 2nd one and then move onto some mittens and gloves with traditional Fair Isle motifs!
The left-leaning/right pointing arrow pattern is a Latvian braid, a cool technique I learned in class. The mitt recipe called for a backward loop cast on in the thumb gusset but after consulting my best local knitting bud, Catherine, a Fair Isle veteran, she instructed me on how to use a Make One to increase my stitches while staying in the chart pattern and I used that method instead.
I'm not really into sweets but the late night knitting lounge desserts were off the chain (crochet joke, get it?)!
My 2nd class was Wrong is Right Cowl with Michelle Hunter.
It was basically a math class that showed us how to easily calculate our gauge and yardage required and design the pattern and custom dimensions for a reversible cowl. I designed a repeating parallelogram pattern in class but in the end, I'm simply going to knit a cowl in seed stitch just because I like the way it looks with the variegated Dragonfly Fibers Firecracker yarn I purchased at Stitches West. I definitely plan to use the parallelogram pattern later but it will look better with solid colored yarn.
This is the (wet) view from my room at the UMass hotel. I really liked my room and the hotel in general and the construction outside didn't both me at all. I enjoyed spying on the daily progress.
More yummy treats from the late night knitting lounge. I also found a great liquor store in town and bought some juicy IPAs.
Saturday morning started with Steeks for the Timid with Julia Farwell-Clay. I felt like I really excelled in this class because 2 of the stabilizing techniques we learned involved surface crochet and the 3rd technique involved whip stitch. Once a garment is steeked, the additional reinforcement can be sewed by hand or on a sewing machine, both things I enjoy. The photo doesn't really do the class justice, since the whole purpose of the class was to cut up our work. In addition to steeking, I learned how to knit a button band with a (very helpful) knit 3, skip 1 ratio. I can't wait to knit a sweater in the round and steek it into a cardigan!
My final class was Navajo Intarsia, again with Michelle Hunter. Unfortunately there was something wrong with the thermostat in our classroom, the windows wouldn't open and there was no draft in the hallway with the door open and by the end of the class it was 82 degrees inside and some of the students were so hot that they had started striping off their clothes, shoes and socks included. I despise extreme heat and I was dying. I felt like what I can only imagine going through menopause with hot flashes feels like. But hot yoga conditions aside, it was a fun and funky class where we learned how to "make more yarn" and knit a polka-dotted shawl with 3 plied dots over a single ply background.
Our field trip to Webs was the grand finale of the retreat. It was my first time visiting the store. The warehouse gave me flashbacks of being a picker at Amazon. As you can see from my haul at the beginning of this post, I didn't have any trouble finding enough yarn to buy! I also bought Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting. The book (which I probably could've just bought online) is utterly fascinating and quite possibly my best souvenir!
So now that I'm home and back to reality, I have no shortage of projects to start and complete. I am 3/4 done with my pillows for Etienne and I finished 1 of my socks in Kindred Red oh snap! but I'm not going to post any photos until I'm completely finished with everything. I also have a lot of non-fiber arts related stuff going on and on the 26th, we're heading to Stockholm, Sweden! So that's all for now!
