Hats!

I went to the Madrona Fiber Arts winter retreat and had a lovely time (as always) visiting with friends and shopping the market.

One of the things I bought at the market were some hat kits from Butternut Woolens.

When I got home from the retreat I got one of these kits out 'just to try it' and couldn't put it down. I had forgotten about the instant gratification aspect of bulky yarn and size 11 needles! Before I knew it, I'd finished all three hats (though the last two still need their angora liners).

Snowshoe Hats

These hats are really flattering too. I don't really have a 'hat head' and most hats are rather universally unflattering on me, but this one looks really good (if I do say so myself). The angora felt lining is amazingly soft and cozy on the ears.

Plus? A portion of the proceeds from each kit is donated to the Glacier Park Fund for research on hare and other small animal populations. Here's an excerpt from the pattern sheet:

Snowshoe hare populations in the greater Glacier National Park ecosystem are under threat due to climate change. Snows are melting earlier than normal. This places white hares, who change coat color with the seasons, on brown earth, making htem easier prey for lynx, owls and other animals. As the hare population plummets, lynx populations in particular seem to be plummeting as well. Glacier National Park scientists and University of Montana researchers are gathering DNA data on the Park's hares in an effort to more fully understand their needs.

I bought a few more kits because these hats are going to make excellent gifts. Gift knitting *and* a donation to wildlife research?
I'm practically saint-like while knitting these!
;-)

Madrona Report

(I am finally on the mend and have been cleared for limited computer access and blogging by the rest enforcer my loving husband. This is a conditional release however and privileges will be revoked if I relapse due to failure to exercise moderation…)

My absolute favorite part of Madrona is visiting with friends from both near and far that I don’t get to see nearly often enough.

Beyond that it’s hard to pick favorites at Madrona because the event itself is just wonderful from start to finish and the classes, in my experience, are always excellent. The only bad part of Madrona is waiting a whole year for the next one!

That being said, if I had to pick one class from the entire weekend as my favorite then Susanna Hansson’s Lapland Hand Garments: The mittens from Rovaniemi would be that class.

When the Madrona class listing first came out I had googled ‘rovaniemi mittens’ and found Lene’s lovely mittens . I was quite intrigued to learn this interesting intarsia in the round technique though the reference in the class description of using “11 small balls of yarn” sounded a bit daunting. I was thrilled when Vanessa and I both managed to get in to the class before it filled up.

Day One – The Mittens of Rovaniemi
After some interesting historical and geographical background we were able to admire, fondle and even try on the sample mittens. I read Lene Alve’s blog regularly and so I have admired her knitting online many times, but it doesn’t compare to seeing her absolutely perfect and beautiful knitting in person. Lene is an artist and an absolutely inspiring knitter.

The mittens were very difficult to part with once on the hand!

The first part of the class involved learning the technique with Cascade 220 and larger needles (I’m new at this blogging thing and was so intent on my knitting I forgot to take a photo of this part). Once we felt comfortable the process in the larger gauge we were able to pick out the colors for our finer gauge cuff.

The technique was a bit more challenging in the finer gauge and smaller needles (I believe I overheard Stephanie tell Susanna that the larger gauge sample made one a little over-confident and the finer gauge knitting was a more humbling experience)

Sample mitten in progress

This had to have been the quietest knitting class I’ve ever been in. There was no chatting or cross-talk in the room - everyone was heads-down and focused on their knitting!

Of course, Vanessa, being the lightning fast knitter that she is, was miles ahead of me towards the end of class. Here she is knitting away:

(note the difference in magnet placement on our charts!)

The mitten round-up at the end of class. My mitten is the blue and green one on the left.

Usually by the end of class I’m ready for a bit of a break before continuing on with my sample (for example, the break for my Estonian lace sample has been going on for over a year now…), but I think this technique is quite addictive. After class Vanessa and I went straight to our hotel room and kept knitting, only stopping because we had to leave for dinner with friends.

Susanna Hansson is simply an excellent teacher and an absolutely lovely person to spend the day with. I’m anxious to take another class from her and am looking forward to attending the the Nordic Knitting Conference in October if I can.

I may have been a bit over-enthusiastic in relaying my excitement about the class to Susanna repeatedly as I saw her throughout the weekend. I’m nothing if not enthusiastic... (Sorry, Susanna, I wasn’t really stalking you. Thanks for being really nice as I gushed about the mitten class and expressed my disappointment in not signing up for the Bohus class again and again. I’m sure by Saturday you were thinking that the hotel was maybe a wee bit too small and, my goodness, can’t they screen these people somehow?)

You can see more reports on this class here, here, and here.

Day 2 – Morphing Cables and Mentoring
My morning class on Friday was the Morphing Cables class with Fiona Ellis. I enjoyed listening to Fiona talk about her inspiration for cables and techniques to use in order to achieve different cable forms. I think I would have done better with a slightly more structured class on this particular day. I was starting to feel decidedly unwell at this point and not overly creative. The unstructured approach left me a bit at loose ends (no pun intended) until the Sudafed finally kicked in close to the end of class. I enjoyed chatting with my neighbors though and seeing their lovely cable creations, Lara’s was particularly lovely. My own was quite hideous and there will be no photographic evidence presented here.

My afternoon class was a mentoring session with Stephanie. Holly and I had signed up just to hang out and listen to Stephanie. Class introductions revealed that the majority of attendees had been of the same mind (I was relieved not to have to be the first one to admit it during the ‘around the table’ introductions). Among other things, Stephanie shared a lot of good information about decreasing for set in sleeves and planning decrease ratios based on body frame (complete with drawn flip chart diagrams!). As usual, Stephanie was highly entertaining and educational at the same time.

For some strange reason, I decided to bring my Rovaniemi sampler to work on during the class. In retrospect, I have no idea what I was thinking other than I really wanted to finish it up. I already knew that I didn’t feel well, that the process takes a lot of concentration and there was limited table space all of which made this knitting a horrible candidate for the afternoon’s work.

So of course you know what happened. I looked up at something Stephanie had written on the flip chart and when I looked down one of my 00 needles had slipped a few stitches off. I tried to fix it in class and succeeded in only making it worse. I set it aside and picked up my sock but too late the damage was done! Dropped stitches with this technique have some real negative progress involved in fixing it. To be continued...

Day 3 – Introduction to Fair Isle Design and Colorwork
Saturday’s class was an introduction to Fair Isle design with Janine Bajus. Another excellent class! As a regular reader of Janine’s blog, it was quite exciting to see her lovely designs in person and hear about her approach to designing Fair Isle projects.

This was a 3-day workshop crammed into a single day. Lots of color theory and hands-on color exercises, including interpreting an inspiration photo in yarn. Janine gave instruction on two-color knitting for attendees not familiar with the technique while more advanced members worked on selecting yarn to make their sample cap. The class included two hat patterns and two ounces of yarn from Janine’s really amazing stash of Shetland yarn.

I would love to take the 3-day version of this workshop!

I did not take as many photos as I should have during this class because by Saturday I was feeling decidedly lousy. I wish I’d gotten a photo of Janine’s huge bag of Shetland bobbins. She has a sample of every single Jamieson’s and Jamieson and Smith yarn available. Invaluable if you are planning to design your own Fair Isle garments according to Janine.

You can read Janine's report report here (with all the pictures I neglected to take!).

Yarn and Fiber Marketplace
I was really quite restrained at the Madrona marketplace, especially if we decide to completely ignore the fact that my actual goal was to buy nothing…

My sole marketplace acquisitions:

Birdseye Maple Spindle by SpindleWood Co

BFL and Merino-Tencel rovings in “Autumn” by Chameleon Colorworks
Mulberry Silk-Superfine Merino roving in “Farmhouse” by Blue Moon Fiber Arts

The Chameleon Colorworks rovings will be spun up as my February contribution to my Spin To Knit swap pal.

The Blue Moon Fiber Arts roving is just because I couldn’t resist (I tried, really, but resistance is futile). That’s a dangerous booth to be in!

I also bought some felted flowers from Una at Wooly Walkers (these are gifts for some friends at work).

I have to admit that the lack of purchases probably had more to do with me feeling sick most of the weekend and not from any real self-control on my part.

Toby inspects and approves the Madrona purchases

Friends!
One of these times I’ll remember to take more photos of the evening get-togethers. The trouble is I’m so busy having a good time that I forget to snap photos. Here are a few that I did remember to take:

clockwise from front left

Mel, Holly, Marti, Vanessa, Jessica

Lara, Kerry, Barb, and Sam from the FT group

Angela! (looking much better in my hat than I do)

Jessica and Marti

clockwise from bottom front

TMK (back of head), Ryan, Jessica, Marti, Rebecca, Vanessa, Peggy

I can’t wait for next year!

Butt-kicking virus: 2, Denise: still 0

(Actually, the butt-kicking virus has mutated into a nasty sinus and lung infection but I blame the virus for starting all of this crap anyway)

My Madrona experience ended with a 102 degree fever and a 3 hour visit to urgent care on Sunday.

The good news is that I don’t have pneumonia. Thank goodness or I would have never heard the end of it from Mr. CPA, who was none too pleased with me for not coming home earlier as he had suggested when he found out I was getting sick again at the hotel. I tried to explain that I had not been quite that sick until later Saturday evening, but the fever and non-stop coughing fits weren’t really helping my credibility much at that point.

So no Madrona report until I’m recovered as Mr. CPA is being very strict about the 'resting', which means zero computer time when he is home because he does not think sitting in my office at the computer contributes to my getting better. (I’m sneaking this in quickly while he’s at work). But go see Vanessa’s review of the absolutely wonderful Rovaniemi mitten class that we took until I can write up my own - besides, her samples, as usual, are done and mine are not.

Mr. CPA hasn’t had to worry too much about me sitting at the computer while he’s at work because I have quite a busy daily nap schedule courtesy of my new codeine-based cough syrup. The early, mid, and late-morning naps are followed by the early, mid, and late-afternoon naps, leaving me very little time to contemplate doing anything other than watching the first 10 minutes of any bad daytime television program before nodding off into my drug-induced haze again.

I must be feeling somewhat better as this is the second time today I’ve been non-comatose for more than 20 consecutive minutes.

That’s all for now. The informer (otherwise known as the youngest son) will be coming home from classes any minute and I’m not up for another lecture tonight about not taking care of my health.

And I'm Off...

Okay, off to Madrona to meet up with Vanessa tonight.

I'm horribly overpacked and yet I have sinking feeling I've forgotten something rather important. But as Holly reminded me recently, as long as I remember my pants I'm probably okay!

Full report and photos when I return!

Preparing for Madrona

(sorry, picture heavy below)

Step 1
Clean casa del chaos in preparation for the minor disaster about to be unleashed into the family room (there is a limit, after all, to just how much disorganization the house can take at any one time).

Step 2
Remove all fiber from Basement of Wool (tm) and place in family room.

Step 3
Admire assembled fiber with pride and mentally pat self on the back. My, haven’t you been a busy shopper these past few years?

Step 4
Observe the assembled fleeces and prepped spinning fiber and sense a disturbance in the fiber force. Something is missing.

Step 5
Examine all decorative elements around the house used to ‘maximize storage opportunities’. Gather more fiber from antique Chinese basket and red rice bucket in living room and place in family room. While looking for something else, inadvertently find additional fiber in stacked baskets by spinning wheel and in the office. (What? You don’t keep spinning fiber in your office?)

Step 6
Re-review piles of fleeces and prepared fibers in the huge pile now assembled in the family room. Consider taking picture of the huge, unsorted pile in its entirety. Recall that husband knows about blog and decide against it.

Step 7
Suddenly realize that you have only spun about 3 pounds of fiber in the last year. Have a brief dizzy moment when some quick mental calculations indicate how many years of dedicated spinning are represented by the fiber stacked up around you. Close eyes and breathe deeply allowing the soothing power of the concentrated wool fumes to calm you.

Step 8
Separate fiber into like groups to get a better sense of the complete inventory. Observe that you have an apparent fondness for grey.

Step 9
See labels on some of the older stash items and remember regretfully how organized you used to be. Read labels and feel a bit shocked at how long some of this stuff has been stored in the basement. Realize that you actually made a wise decision to stop carefully labeling everything with details that include purchase date.

Step 10
Take photos of individual groupings to take with you to Madrona, to be used in the event your resolve weakens and you become convinced that you ‘need’ more fiber.

The Marvelous Eugene Fleece from Black Sheep

(doesn't really count since it's being shared with Holly after processing)

Grey Romney fleeces
(Appx 15 pounds from separate purchases)

Angora blend batts & Merino cross batts in back
More Romney in the front

Grey merino cross and NC kid mohair

The Never Ending Internet Fleece (NEIF)
(A post all its own at some point)

Satin Angora

Exotic fibers

Assorted dyed locks

The Dicentra collection and some Chasing Rainbows silk

Misc. prepared fibers

Chasing Rainbows silk and silk blend along with some silk caps from ?

Step 11
Recall again that husband knows about blog and wonder whether posting photos of your lack of self-control inventory was a wise choice. Convince self that husband can be persuaded that some fiber appeared in more than one photo, thereby giving the illusion that there is more than there really is. Silently wonder if that will really work. He’s pretty sharp, darn it, and you have done an excellent job over the years on educating him about fiber.

Plan instead to remind him that he now owns a sailboat and spent more in the first year of ownership than you did in your first five years of spinning and knitting. Hope he does not bring up the fact that you have now been spinning for over 13 years now and ask for a revised total. Actively regret reminding him the other day how much you have spent on spinning wheels during that homeowners insurance coverage review.

Step 12
Decide that stronger measures will likely be required in order to maintain some minimal semblance of control in the Madrona marketplace: