Well, I’m home from the retreat and still exhausted, but I want to try to get this all written while it’s fresh in my mind. I had a wonderful time, with the exception of one major problem, which I’ll tell you about below.
Day 1, Friday
On Friday around noon I joined up with my two new friends, Carrie and Lou, at the Albany airport. We had met on the KR forums and arranged to ride together to the retreat. But since dinner wasn’t until 6:00 pm, we decided to drive to WEBS in Northhampton for a quickie shopping trip. On the almost 2-hour drive we got to know each other a bit and chatted about our hopes for the retreat. Carrie had been to the retreat once before and Lou had been several times, so they talked about their past experiences and got me even more excited about it.
We finally arrived at WEBS and decided that we could only allow ourselves about 30 minutes before we had to be back on the road to Williamstown if we wanted to get there in time for dinner. We took this pic before we went inside, and I think you can see by the look on my face that I was quite excited.
We went in and I really felt like a kid in a candy store (my sister said that’s what my face looked like in this picture!). The front part of the shop was beautiful, big, bountiful, bodacious, burgeoning,…you get the picture, right? I wanted to see everything, so I made a rather quick round of the whole shop before I started selecting yarn.
I got to make a very quick lap around the warehouse in back too, where I snagged a bag of the most beautiful green Jo Sharp Silk Road Aran for a vest. Up in the front of the store I got 2 hanks of this beautiful Baby Alpaca Grande Hand Dye from Plymouth. It’s very very soft, but I think the color was what made it jump into my basket. Lately I’ve started buying more hand-dyed yarns just for the beauty, sometimes not even knowing what I’ll do with them. But I have no regrets because I can put them in a glass bowl as a table centerpiece and enjoy them every day if I want to!
I got a couple other small things, then Carrie and I tried to round Lou up and get her into the car. (I think Lou will admit that this wasn’t the only time we had to do this with her — she’s quite the social butterfly!) We hit the road and got to the inn at (I think) around 5:00. We quickly signed in at the hotel registration desk and the retreat registration desk, and got our tote bags full of goodies. Look at some of the things that were in mine:
I didn’t have much luck getting good pictures from either my camera or my Blackberry on this trip, since they were all taken in rooms with very bad lighting. Maybe I’ll do some daylight pics and repost them later….maybe. In the meantime, remember that you can enlarge the pics by clicking on them.
We all got different books in our gift bags. I got the book “Knit Knit” — I’d never heard of it before, but it showcases “knitting as art”, from miniatures to gigantic stuff, to everything in between. I think I’ll put it on the coffee table and read a bit at a time.
Also got a skein of worsted merino by Sundara Yarn, a skein of Berroco Sundae, a ball of Valley Yarns Deerfield (Webs brand), a buffalo gold-covered Tootsie Pop (what a great marketing gimmick), some note cards, and various other small items.
We had dinner, then started the welcoming session that’s a tradition at the KR retreats. After Clara’s opening message (she’s really so welcoming), we each got 90 seconds to stand up and introduce ourselves and talk about our “philosophy of knitting”. Even though I’d had weeks to think about that, I had no idea what to say. Luckily my turn didn’t come until after about 70 other people had their turns (there were 110 people there), so I was able to come up with something. At least I think I was…I forget what I said! I think it was something about not wanting to knit for myself for a while instead of always knitting for my Knitting Matters pattern line….sounded good at the time. (And I’ve since decided that I’m only knitting for myself until the end of 2009…no knitting for work. Pattern writing will continue, but no knitting unless it’s for me. I’m really looking forward to the next 4 or 5 weeks now!)
This session lasted well past 10 pm, at which time I was desperate for some sleep. The room we were in for the session was far too warm, and I’d gotten up several hours before my normal time that morning, so I opted to head directly for my bed without staying up for socializing.
Day 2, Saturday
(Are you still reading? I know this is long, but I promised details, so onward we go:)
I had a bit of a headache when I woke up, but took some meds and headed down for breakfast. Then on to the workshop I’d signed up for with Kathryn Alexander. If you’re not familiar with her work and you love color, you should take a look at her website and see if it inspires you. Surprisingly, I’d never heard of her before the retreat signups, but I decided to take a class that was something out of my normal realm of knitting, just to see what I could get from it. The class was a ton of fun, at least up until 11:00 when my headache had gotten much worse and I was forced to leave the class and go to bed.
I think I’ve written here about how I used to get bad sinus migraines that laid me up for 6 or more hours at a time. Until a few months ago when I was prescribed Singulair and the migraines stopped. Really, I think I had one minor migraine in a 4-month period. So I hadn’t brought any migraine meds to the retreat with me. All I had was some OTC sinus allergy medicine and a few Advil. So I took what I had and tried to sleep it off. The yarn market was scheduled to be open from 2-5 that day, and I was hoping to be able to make it for the opening at 2:00. But 2:00 came and went, and I couldn’t get out of bed. Carrie had said she’d check on me, but my head hurt so bad I put a note on the door asking her not to knock because I couldn’t take the noise. So I missed the entire market, but knew I had to get out of bed and get some food into my stomach one way or another. I forced myself to get up and go down to dinner around 6:30. I sat down with a couple people I didn’t really know, because I couldn’t find Lou or Carrie. (But that resulted in having a couple more new friends, so it turned out nicely!) Anyway, I ate some soup and a few bites of something they “said” was turkey (it was horrible), a bite of stuffing, and I was done. I just couldn’t eat. I was supplied with more drugs by the wonderful girls angels at my table, and went back to bed. I was so disappointed at missing so much that day. I also missed a talk by Melanie Falick about her career in the publishing industry. Bummer.
And of course, around 10:00 pm, all alone in my room, I started to feel much better. Figures. So I hit the vending machines for some pretzels and water, and just resigned myself to having a better Sunday.
Day 3, Sunday
This was the last day of the retreat, ending around noon or so. Luckily I woke up at 7:00 feeling wonderful, although HUNGRY. I went down for breakfast and was the recipient of so many hugs and well wishes for my headache the previous day, it made me feel like I was missed. And, even better, I found out that some of the market vendors had left their booths set up, and we’d be able to shop them at 11:30 — hurray for me!!
But before that we had the final session of the retreat, the New Beginnings session. Clara asks everyone to begin a new project that will be for themselves, and to have other retreat-goers knit a few stitches on it for “good juju” (her words). The idea is that the juju will help you finish the project so you can show it at next year’s retreat. I found it really fun and inspiring to do this, and I just know I’ll have a fantastic new vest for myself before next November. I’m using Veronik Avery’s Mosaic Yoke Jacket as my starting point, and my finished project may or may not resemble the original…I’m not sure what I’ll do for the yoke yet. And I may make shorter sleeves. (Here’s a link to the Ravelry page that shows this project made by lots of other people.)
Clara added her own special wit to the New Beginnings ceremony, reading her version of “wedding vows”, uniting us with our projects, despite dropped stitches, etc., until bind off do we part. Not her exact words, but I think that gives you an idea of what she said. It was so funny we were practically rolling on the floor laughing. That woman is seriously funny!
I was able to get Clara to sign her book, and I also got Ann Budd to sign one of her books that I’d brought with me. Awesome. After exchanging contact info with a few new friends, I got to shop a bit in the market. I got a huge skein of Robusta in the most gorgeous greens from Chris at Briar Rose, and a skein of Alexandra sock yarn from Spirit Trail.
After finally managing to get Lou into the car (she doesn’t know this, but there was talk of getting a leash…I’m just sayin’), we headed back to the Albany airport and said our goodbyes until next year. I’m already looking forward to it. It’ll be nice to be a “veteran” instead of a newbie next time!






















