My Head Is Still Spinning With Ideas

Pictured here is the jeans jacket that Alie made and displayed at the retreat. You can see that she freeformed only the sleeves and collar, which I liked because it was creative and attractive but not too gawdy or "over the top" as some Freeforming efforts can be. It was my favorite newer item that she has made since I last took her class last spring.

My head is spinning with ideas and inspiration!!! I just returned from the First Annual Studio Knitting Retreat. I went with Carol, Laura and my Mom. Boy did we ever have a blast. The only thing that went wrong was my camara messed up so I didn't get to take many photos. I found out later it is because I had it set to "superfine" quality so my memory ran out. Since my camara is 4 years old, I need to either get more memory or a newer camara. It doesn't hold much.

A fantastic time was had by all. What can be better than two solid days of giggling, knitting, eating, and eyeballing other knitters' creative work?

The event started Friday night - we had some trouble finding the hotel, because it was in a remote, twisty-roaded location. Since we were driving at night after work, I was fit to be tied by the time we arrived, but we soon relaxed to a buffet salad and soup dinner in the dining room and a "get acquainted" session with the other participants. Many of them knitted downstairs by the fireplace well into the night, but our crew retreated to bed by 11:30 or so.

Then it was up at 7:00 a.m. and down to a nice breakfast at 8:00. There we met Laura:



and Carol:

and we spent the day learning to scrumble like crazy. I will post a few more pictures later, but my photo limit has evidently been hit already on Blogger.

We knit circles, and triangles, and mitered squares and corkscrews and curves and rainbows. We knit icord and learned how to turn it into various things, as well as how to finish off a jacket, sweater or hat with the attached icord. Ali's instruction was wonderful as always. She's a very patient teacher. While she encourages creativity, she also cautioned us about some things that might NOT work from her own years of Freeforming experience. (If you've ever spent much time over at "You Knit WHAT?" blog, then you probably can envision some of those mistakes. However, I believe that much of this is really just a matter of taste, because what one person might think of as "TOO MUCH" another person might view as stunning and artsy. The important thing is that you knit to please your own taste.

One thing I loved about this conference was that they planned it with some built-in "down time." We had Saturday afternoon to either knit like crazy, visit with friends, shop, take a nap, go to the Spa. Carol, my Mom and I took a short trip to a nearby shop that a multi-plex of shops, including yarn store, fabric store and bead shop. It was really fun. Laura had a mud bath in the spa after she spent the afternoon teaching teens to knit at the library.

On Saturday night, we were treated to a Colinette fashion show. There were many eye-catching projects. There was a Colinette vest that I wanted, wanted, wanted so bad. I might eventually buy the kit. It was a real temptation!!! One of my favorite items for sale were the stash bags that had a color theme. Those were very helpful in planning or supplementing a stash projects such as we were doing.

Sunday morning we were tuckered out. After breakfasting, we went in for a final morning session of knitting and admiring one another's work.

We checked out, loaded our cars with what seemed like twice as much as we brought in, then were back on the highway by 1:00. What a weekend. It was even BETTER than I expected. I can't wait until I get to go it next year.

Many of us may try to go to Stitches this year. I think a Kansas City crowd going together would be a total blast.