People, I am exhausted. I just spent three days laughing my ass off and knitting and spinning. We had our first-ever Purlygirl retreat at Fort Worden. When I came back from my annual Fort Worden retreat this past November a number of Purlygirls expressed interest in our own retreat. I was able to reserve a 6-bedroom house. With a few last minutes cancellations and substitutions there were 11 of us on the retreat with a few day visitors on Saturday.
We started out Friday morning and took the ferry to Kingston and headed straight to the Artful Ewe in Port Gamble. Heidi's shop is always such a warm, welcoming place, full of color, texture and inspiration. I left with some merino/cashmere top dyed an intensely deep blue. Grace, the shop dog, was snuggled in her bed of wool in front of the wood stove with her little paws warming on the hearth.
I think I would like to be Grace in my next life.
Then we headed to Port Townsend, ate lunch and visited the local yarn shops. I was very excited to find a portable, folding wooden foot stool on clearance at The Twisted Ewe. No one in my group could understand what was so exciting about it until we got to the house and they all got to try it out. It just takes all the pressure off your lower back and makes sitting in a not so comfortable chair so much more pleasant.
Once we got settled in we just sat around knitting, spinning and chatting. Some people made forays into town, others strolled the beach and all of us relaxed and had a great time.
I took the chance to finish spinning a luxury blend I had carded myself. It is all the samples of luxury fibers I've collected in classes for the past several years. There's many types of cashmere, bison, yak, alpaca, llama (some blended with silk) all mixed in together. It feels heavenly.
It ended up a variegated, mottled brown. Pretty but not too exciting. When I got home I threw it in the dyepot and now it's a variegated teal.
For knitting I kept things simple. I worked on the ribbed middle section of the Fast Forward scarf in Shelter.
On our way home we stopped on Bainbridge Island and had a final lunch at the Harbour Public house (I love their fish and chips) then went to Churchmouse. We all took the ferry together back home then went off our separate ways.
It was a great time. I already have a house reserved for next year.
April 4, 2011
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1 comment:
i'm in for next year, hopefully no issues next time, but how about a summer version?
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