A Day in the Life of Retreat 2.75, Part III

Today we will look at some special events that happen during Camp. The first is Market Day. On Saturday, one of the adjoining rooms is set up as a market. Vendors consist of both Camp attendees and non-attendees. I didn't take a photo of the market itself while it was happening as all you would see were bodies. This is the tail end of market.
There's fiber and yarn hung on racks.
Other goodies are spread out on tables. There is always a run on hand-painted yarn. This year, additionally, there was a crowd around a vendor selling hand-made wood objects and Jennie the potter, a Camp attendee. There are T-shirts, soap and spinning supplies.

Another important event is the contest on Sunday. Each year the campers suggest and vote on a theme for the following year. The theme this year was Mythical Beasts. Entry is completely voluntary and not everyone enters every year. Each contestant gets up and describes their entry, which is assigned a number. Once all the entries have been described or demonstrated (some are performance art), they are put on a row of chairs in the center of the room along with their numbers. Campers walk around and vote on their top 2 entries.
That is one side of the row of chairs with an entry on each one.Here you can see campers milling around the center examining the entries. It feels like musical chairs without the music as everyone shuffles around the chairs making up their minds on their top 2 entries.This is the other side of the row of chairs. You can see 'Mythical Beets' (a play on the theme) and a unicorn shadow knitted into a vest.

Another special event on Sunday is the raffle. There is a scholarship fund in Elizabeth's name to help deserving campers attend Camp without having to pay. I think there was enough money collected last year to have a scholarship winner at each session this year. Retreat 2.75 campers have a raffle to raise money for the scholarship fund. Many campers bring donations for the prizes. I need to remember to do this next year.

Amy does a fantastic job describing the prizes in glowing words. We decide on the value of a ticket and then buy as many as we want. The items are put in the center of the room (no chairs this time) and bins are put next to each one. We drop as many tickets into each bin as we want, with zero and 100% being acceptable numbers.Here you see one of the most valuable prizes in the foreground. The daughters of one of the campers embroiders a set of dish towels every year. Everyone wants to win them.Campers walk around and inspect the items and decide how to spend their raffle tickets above.While the raffle is going on, Christie counts the votes for the contest. Some of us spend a lot of time deciding what to vote on or what to compete for in the raffle and others decide rather quickly. The quick decision makers hang around in the back chatting.

There will be two more parts to this series. Yes, I am dragging it out because I am enjoying reliving Retreat 2.75 as I write this little diary. Also, there are so many photos that it is better spaced out a bit.

I want to welcome Terry and Dot Com Mom as readers. Thank you for your comments.

Nancy, I will be letting you in on the color scheme I'm currently considering for the mittens. I think I need more colors for the chu'llo but we'll see. Colleen, cool hats are always welcome, even if Waltham is not the frozen tundra. I see people wearing hats in the summer! And last but not least, Laura, I enjoy posting about Camp as much as you seem to be enjoying reading about it. And yes, everyone has a gorgeous lace shawl or an even more gorgeous fair-isle that they are modeling. It is a good thing the room is usually cold!

A Day in the Life will be right back after...

a short break for some knitting news.

I have been knitting quite regularly, maybe inspired by all the lovelies at Camp. First of all, I finished the socks I started back in February at Madrona. I've named these Boysenberry Waffles. You've seen them before. Here's the pair:
A close up of the broken rib pattern.
A closer look at the heel. You can see the little gussets I make so that I can work eye-of-partridge st on the heel and make it deeper. I purled the gussets so I didn't have to keep track of them. You just increase till you have the correct number of purled sts and decrease till all of them are gone.
I also made a beaded beret in Rowan Wool/silk in the Bramble colorway. I thought I would knit this at Camp and I swatched for it there but I didn't have enough beads. This is for a class where I'll be teaching two different beading techniques. My usual beading class involves about 10 different techniques but that involves just a sampler. Students wanted a real project so I came up with this. The brim has the beads threaded on and that was why I couldn't start without all the beads on the yarn. I use a Big Eye needle to thread beads as some of you may have seen when I was making my necklace. One can also use a floss threader but I find it too floppy to pick up the beads. This is a close-up of the finished brim with the shadowed diamonds pattern that I designed. The blue diamonds have a green shadow.
On the top, I put the beads on the st via a crochet hook. The crochet hook that fit the hole in the bead was too small to grab the yarn without splitting it. So I struggled with fixing the splits. I remembered that vanessa had mentioned that Oral-B Superfloss could be used for the same purpose. So I went out and bought some and voila! it worked beautifully. The Superfloss is not as fast as the crochet hook when it works well , but much faster than fixing a split st when it doesn't work as well. Yes, the photo is out of focus. But you can see the result. I'll take a better picture next time I pull out the camera.

I'm working on the Wild Apple. It has been slow going because I am increasing after the yoke. That means the rounds are getting longer and longer. I am up to over 500 sts between the front, back and two sleeves. But I am almost done. Once I divide for the underarms, the body is one long mindless knit. I knit really fast when I'm just doing mindless stockinette so it doesn't take as long as it might for others.

I don't win things. Or so I said till I went to Camp last year. I won two raffle items last year, a lot of vintage Rowan yarns and the Natural Knitter by Barbara Albright. This year I won some lovely skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport Mill-ends in Motherlode. Frequently, folks bring items they've knit with winnings and prizes for show-and-tell. The vintage Rowan is very precious and I want to do something really beautiful and unique with it. However, I have a plan for the Lorna's Laces.

I am debating whether the Lorna's Laces project or a pair of mittens from Latvian Mittens or a ch'ullo inspired by Andean Folk Knitting by Cynthia LeCount is going to be my next project. I am failing miserably at coming up with a color scheme for the chu'llo (more in a future post) but I think I have a good one for a pair of mittens. So one of the first two will be next.

Now we return you to your regularly scheduled programming...

A Day in the Life of Retreat 2.75, Part 2

Today we will focus on one of the best aspects of Camp outside the actual session - socializing! I find this the most stimulating part except for the learning. We wander around looking at each other's projects.
People socialize a lot with those who sit near them. Seats are first-come-first-served. Right after the buffet on Thurs, the classroom opens and there is a rush to find seats. Typically room-mates and friends sit together but your neighbors across the table and next to you might be people you haven't met or sat near before. It is a good way to make new friends.
Then there is the petting and sharing of new acquisitions.
One can also work on one's knitting without paying attention to the hubbub around.
There are always piles of yarn lying around to stimulate one's imagination.
People move around and catch up with friends from years past.
Long-time friends and roomies spend quality time together.
One can admire the knitting of masters in a genre.And one can fondle yarn in all its glory. I love looking at people's projects and chatting with them, catching up on their year. But I never get to everyone every year.

A Day in the Life of Retreat 2.75, Part 1

Before I start, I want to acknowledge comments on previous posts:

• Maria: the sourdough wheat bread is so tasty that I find other breads quite flat-tasting now. However, I put a tad too much pepper in my last potato rosemary sourdough bread and it was not a pleasant after-taste. Yuck! I am still learning how the taste of sourdough changes over time. It seems to get better after a few days and the pepper didn't blend with as much as it did on the first day.
• Diane: Thank you! I am a relatively recent convert to blocking. I knitted for decades before discovering it about 10 or so years ago. Now I can't imagine wearing a knit without blocking first. I am quite puzzled as to why that certain catalog company thinks they can get away with it.
• Colleen: welcome! I am quite impressed that a search on Bohus and Jaya turns up my blog. I didn't think it would rank high enough to even show up on a search! It was very nice seeing you at Camp and converting you to the religion of KidSilk Haze. I can't wait to see your Earth Stripe Wrap.
  

I am going to avoid the trap of showing you the photos of the gorgeous knitted items people bring to Camp. I want to allow you to live the experience and therefore, I am going to take you on a brief tour of a day at Retreat 2.75. The difference between a Retreat and a Camp is that Meg Swansen teaches less at Retreats: instead, she answers questions we submit; participates in dialog with attendees; and attendees volunteer to teach mini-workshops on many topics. It is focused more on learning from each other (and Meg), and less on learning just from Meg. That is good and bad. We all love to hear Meg teach and to learn from her. However, I also love the diversity of opinions and the different ideas that come forth when we teach each other.

These photos are not really taken on the same day, but I am going to use them to give you an idea of what we do in the course of a day. The only part that is missing is the actual session with the teaching and show and tell. I didn't want to interrupt my own thoughts with picture taking. You'll see photos of the show and tell on other Campers' blogs.

We start with breakfast from 8-9. Most of us arrive before then and mingle and sit and chat and knit. We also have a break at around 10:30 which looks a lot like breakfast. Breakfast is yogurt, muffins or bagels, fruit and coffee. Some of us get breakfast elsewhere - in our rooms, at the Kitchen Table which is owned by Meg's sister Lloie, or in other places.
This is the breakfast table with the coffee in the background.
Meg and Amy Detjen usually arrive before 9 and sit and chat with us. Amy is around all the time, even at 11 pm at night. Joyce Williams is also around all the time but she was working on a book so was not available as much as she usually is. It is wonderful to be able to learn from them in the evenings - one on one instruction from masters.
Campers eating, drinking and socializing.
We call this area the living room. It has comfy chairs and is nice for a cozy chat, especially late at night. We also have our Sunday night pizza party in this area.
Lucy, Camper in the middle, is the Koigu queen. She knits amazing things with Koigu but is not completely faithful to it. Sometimes she plays around with other yarns, with excellent results. Here are some Campers chatting and working on their projects. Mornings are always filled with anticipation and excitement. The mood is different than it is in the afternoons and evenings.More chatting and listening and looking at others' projects. I find it inspirational to see what others are working on.

I also think it important to give credit to the folks behind the scenes. So here are a few Schoolhouse Press employees. More to come later.This is Christie, Camp Director Extraordinaire. Without her none of this would be possible.If you call Schoolhouse Press, it is very likely that you will talk to Eleanor (on the left). She knows everything about everything they stock.

Bohus a-round, anyone?

No, I haven't forgotten that I was going to talk to you about Knitting Camp. But I thought I'd do a quick post on a topic that I've been meaning to do for a while. It is related to Camp in that Elizabeth Zimmerman and Meg Swansen were/are major proponents of circular knitting and this is a flat to circular knitting conversion.

Many people are puzzled by the idea of doing a Bohus pattern in the round. The patterns in the kits from Solveig Gustafsson are written for knitting back and forth after the yoke is completed. I have corresponded with many people who are stymied by the concept of the short rows that are used to raise the back neck and create a better fit. I thought a couple of visuals would remove this confusion once and for all.

Here is a diagram of the way the short rows are described in the pattern. You can see that they are only on the front. This is because the partial rows are only in the front. The short rows gradually increase with each pair to go from the front armhole to just short of the center front. This raises the back neck and provides a gradual slope to the front neck so it fits better. There are no short rows on the back or sleeves because there are no partial rows there. They are all full rows across the entire width.Now here is the same set of short rows when the garment is done in the round. Essentially, one knits to just past the front armhole (or past the previous turning point), turns and purls back around to the corresponding point on the other side. This is repeated till all the short rows are completed. The turning points are exactly the same for the back-and-forth version and the in-the-round version.Note: my diagrams are not to scale.

More later when I have a bit more time.

Le Sideways Cardigan est fini

I am writing this ahead of schedule because I will be away at Meg Swansen's Retreat 2.75 this weekend. My computer will be lying neglected at home so I am posting before I leave. Besides, I have news to report! After all my whining about the Sideways Cardigan and my lack of motivation to knit it, I found the motivation to finish it in record time. You can see it blocking below. The motivation came from wanting to show it off at the Retreat. Also, I want to move on. I want to start working on the next project and also to finish up my Wild Apple. So I knit on, late at night on Sunday and Monday night, finishing it. I dislike knitting things flat, especially cotton. The Purelife is a lovely soft yarn but it is cotton. Spit splicing is not possible and ends can pop out. I ended most balls at the side edges but there were a couple of places in the yoke where I ran out of yarn mid-row and didn't want to tink back. Besides, by then I realized that the edges are not all that useful in this piece because there is minimal finishing at the edges.

I did a round of single crochet around all the edges and I've pinned them down so they dry flat. I lengthened the cardigan by one repeat of the wavy pattern so it comes to my waist. My midriff does not need to be showcased. I also reduced the ease to 3-4" rather than the 6-7" in the pattern.

I have to find buttons but in the meantime I will use a shawl pin to keep the top closed.

My next few posts will be all about the Retreat. Stay tuned!

Why do some projects strike our fancy?

I made some progress on the VK Sideways Cardigan while I was traveling. However, I didn't do much during the week. My camera is back so I have some pictures to share, though.That is the back. All done. It is pretty after it is completed.Here's the front, partially done. I have to start the neck decreases. It should go fast but I have to sit down and concentrate to deal with the chart and the pattern. Then I have to do the yoke on the other front and sew it all together. I am going to do a round of single crochet around all the edges to make them neater.

I didn't post last weekend as I got back late on Friday, had a lot of catch-up to do around the house on Sat and went to visit family on Sunday. It has been hectic.

For some reason, I am having a lot of trouble motivating myself to work on this sweater. Why is that? Isn't knitting, knitting? Yet, there are some projects I love working on - Bohus sweater for example - even in the boring parts. Here is a project that isn't all that boring. It is very quick but for some reason it hasn't caught my fancy and I don't want to work on it. I'm sure I'll love it when it is done. I like the way it looks and feels. But I don't like knitting on it. Why is that?This weed is what I am going to be pulling out of my garden today. It has taken over the north side bed of my yard and I need to eradicate it. Shallow roots, spreads by runners. Sort of pretty but very invasive.

I have a podcast recommendation, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. Very funny and informative.