The first weekend of May found some members of my knitting guild in the mountains of New Hampshire. Eight ladies plus myself spent three days together at The Grand View Lodge in Randolph. It's a knitting shop with accommodations upstairs. There was much laughter, sharing, and a little knitting going on. There was a requirement to work only on items purchased in the shop while there. The accommodations were sufficient, but a bit rustic. If you are looking for a fancy hotel, this is not the place for you to stay.
The shop was over-flowing with yarns, notions, patterns, kits, and all sorts of goodies for knitting and crochet. Every time I looked, I found something else I hadn't noticed before. I think I ripped back as much as I knit while laughing and talking. Only one of us finished her project while there.
On the way there, we stopped at Patternworks in Meredith and ate lunch at Hart's Turkey Restaurant. Yum!
A bit of retail therapy happened while in Patternworks.
Here's a picture of my purchases from the retreat shop.
This is the Honey Cowl I ended up frogging and restarting when I got home. I could see too many slip 1/purl 1 mistakes. And I didn't have any wine so that's not an excuse. lol
Here's a couple pics of the mountains and one of the rivers/streams.
The last few months have just flown by. Since my last post, I've finished the Monkey Socks, a snugly bulky weight cowl called Centered Stitch Mitered Cowl (I still need to buy the right button), Pettine, Bakersfield, Katara (all by Corrina Ferguson), and Brickless by Martina Behm. The four shawlette/scarves need pictures and blocking yet. I will post those when I get it done. I still haven't found the missing yarn I want to use to knit my Harvest sweater in yet. I know it's here somewhere.
Currently, I'm knitting a pair of modified Pink Chocolate short socks. I only had a half skein left of the "Gloaming" colorway from Play At Life Fiber Arts yarn I used in the Brickless. I bought a mini skein in a pretty blue that matches the color in the the Gloaming and plan to do an afterthought heel and toe with it. There's two ounces of the original yarn so I should be able to manage most of the foot with it.
So far this year I've managed to spin 68.8 ounces of fiber. My goal is eight pounds spun and plied this year. I think I'll make it with no problem. I've got 5 different colors/fibers either spun or waiting for me to finish spinning so they can all be plied. I plan to do another ply-fest at the end of the month during the Stash Dash 5K with the Knit Girllls. It's a self challenge to see if you can use or spin 5K between May 23 and the first week of August. Projects already count for full yardage as long as you don't ply the singles or bind off prior to May 23. Tour de Fleece also falls in the middle of the 5K so that's an added incentive to spin. I need to knit more before then too. lol
