I'm just back from a Floating Knitting Retreat that was run by Cat Bordhi of moebius knitting fame. She has a new book out that does some very interesting things with sock 'architecture'. I've fallen in love with this book and I believe that it will make sock knitting a lot of fun for the foreseeable future for me.
The retreat was in the beautiful San Juan islands of Washington state. Just to give you a taste, here are a couple of pictures:
It's a beautiful area, though not very far from where I live. And not too different in the way it looks--different islands and different mountains.
We spent three days riding on the inter-island ferry, the ferry that goes around to four of the San Juan Islands. There's no charge for walking on the ferry, and it made the nicest knitting classroom and gathering place that I've been in for a long time.
We had great weather for the time we were there. It only rained part of one day. For this time of year in Washington, that's pretty remarkable.
I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop that Cat ran. She's very low key and is willing to let students do what they really want to do. I found renewed interest in several things, but especially in sock knitting and playing with some different sock shapings. I definitely have a few pattern ideas out of this.
This was the second of two retreats that Cat did this fall and if you want to see what the other one was like, in theory, this link will work. It's currently not working at all (server down or DNS entry not there from the error message), but I figured I would include it anyway.
My friend Bonnie and I used this retreat as an excuse to get together and have some knitting time. It was great to see her and I'm very glad that we did this. We then went on to do a yarn crawl on the way back to SeaTac to get her back for her plane flight. I bought way too much yarn on the yarn crawl. Combined with the lovely gifts from the retreat, I had to make far too many trips into the house to unload my car.
And, speaking of all that yarn and ideas, it's time to go do some knitting!
Christine (of Spin, weave, knit, cake) tagged me with a Nice Matters award a couple of days ago. I'm a little behind in my blog reading (not to mention blogging).
This means that I'm supposed to tag seven others similarly...I definitely need to think about this a bit. I can't say that I know who to tag (except perhaps some people already tagged...).
The last couple of weeks have been crazy, and the next couple aren't looking any better. I was out of town last week for work for two days (and ended up on a late ferry because there were too many other people trying to get onto the island, grumble, grumble). This week is swamped because I have to give a bunch of different training sessions (all to people that I work with, not to customers that we sold to). And next week I'm meeting a friend to go on a Floating Knitting Retreat that Cat Bordhi is hosting. I'm looking forward to having some time off and spending a bunch of time knitting. I did have someone at work suggest that I postpone the vacation and that didn't go over very well...
Fiber wise, I still haven't wound on the warp for the placemats. I have managed to finish threading, but haven't gotten any further. I have three things in progress on the needles, and I'm still spinning some cottolin on my wheel. Progress is slow on all fronts, because I've had to spend a bunch of time on work that otherwise would have gone to fiber work.
Oh yeah! I also joined the Knitters Tea Swap 4, so I had to go find appropriate things to send off in my package this weekend. I may send the package while I'm in the states, since my swapee is in the US and that way I can avoid a customs form.
Some day I'll have time to do all the things that I want to do. Right about the time that I don't have any aches or pains or other reasons to not knit or spin or weave...
All right Christine with the snide comments...
Yes, it has been a while. Things have been a bit busy since August. Work has been pretty amazingly busy, and that keeps me from being enthusiastic about posting. Somehow, the more time I spend on the computer at work, the less I want to do things (besides read) on the computer at home.
I did manage to finish a couple of things. Two pairs of socks and a felted bag have joined the FO queue. I felted the bag, but it felted unevenly, so I need to see if I can get the side that's too long to felt more if I agitate that side by hand. This is something that I auctioned off at a charity auction, so I need to see if I can resurrect it pretty quickly. Otherwise I may be making a new one, which means I need to find some yarn to do it with...
I do have pictures of both pairs of socks. This one is made with Tofutsies and is a pretty standard cuff down sock pattern (I think I was basically following the Yarn Harlot's basic sock pattern).
And this one is made from Panda Cotton, using the Crooked Cable Socks pattern from Sock Bug:
I really like Panda Cotton as a sock yarn. I don't particularly like wool socks, so it makes a good sock yarn for me. Even the wool/cotton blends are not my first choice for socks.
I've now started a new pair of socks and vest from an issue of IK from last year (or maybe it was early this year...). I'm meeting a friend for a knitting retreat at the end of October that promises much more in the way of socks and maybe a moebius project.
It's a beautiful area, though not very far from where I live. And not too different in the way it looks--different islands and different mountains.
We had great weather for the time we were there. It only rained part of one day. For this time of year in Washington, that's pretty remarkable.
