Wednesday, May 04, 2016

My Annual Knitting Retreat

Last Friday found me driving to West Yarmouth, MA for my knitting guild's annual retreat.  Since I had a previous appointment and left late, there was only one stop at a yarn shop along the way.  Three skeins of Plymouth Merino in a dark gray came home with me from there.

We stayed at the Hampton Inn again this year.  After checking in, we all drove to A Great Yarn Shop for a cheese/wine/yarn tasting.  I had water since I don't drink.  It was a lot of fun and I ended up buying 3 skeins of one of the featured yarns along with a cowl pattern for it. There was a new colorway dyed for the shop which I purchased and will be a shawl or cowl.  After stopping for a nice supper, the rest of the evening was spent knitting with everyone in the conference room. 

Saturday was more yarn shop visits, where I bought a couple books and notions - no more yarn - and a stop for a delicious lunch.  The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent in the conference room where I spun on my Hansen mini-spinner for most of it.  There's still about twelve ounces left of my sweater fiber to spin. 

Sunday was the drive home, a nap, laundry, and a quick supper of grilled chicken in a salad.  That evening I finally started my May vanilla sock 1 in Cascade Heritage Prints "Iris" colorway.  I wasn't in the mood to start the patterned ones I have bagged.  That pair now have the ribbing done on the first sock.  

Besides the sweater spinning, I'm still working on the JulieSpins braid I started in March.  It's lovely and spinning so fine it's taking a bit longer to finish.  I did finish my YOSSRATS2106 April socks, "Dublin Bay" in the "Chatham" colorway. (I forgot them in my room when we went to the shop on Friday night).  There was a  quick shawl started and finished as well.  The "Narita Express Shawl" only took me seven days.

Here's pictures of my current "Iris" vanilla sock yarn, and "Narita Express" shawl. The shawl isn't blocked yet.