ah madrona

where to start, hmm, maybe the best part of all was rooming with denise :-)
when janine had to cancel because of her cursed foot (next year for sure girl), i was lucky enough to bunk with denise. even though we are both on the same list, we'd never met before. i hope denise feels the same, i felt like we hit it off right off the bat! she was also kind enough to have my reeves norwegian shipped to her and truck it down, thanks :-)

we both had spinning and knitting estonian lace taught by judith mackenzie mccuin and nancy bush. judith taught the spinning in the morning, and nancy the knitting in the afternoon. this class was thursday and friday. let me just say this, charlene schurch said to me, if judith taught a class on how to boil water people would sign up. i'd be the first on the list. all that woman has to do is open her mouth to speak and i am entranced.
also in the class were marti, jessica, and stephanie. poor jessica (who is funnier than s**t) got busted for knitting her olympic sweater instead of the class project ;-0

here i am grinning idiotically, judith had just told me my tiny lace skein was perfect! omg, i could die happy now :-)

did pick up quite a few tips in the knitting section, esp. the picking up the selvege bit. denise did not like knitting the nupps;-) will post a photo of the sample if i ever block it.

angela, holly, and lara shopped enough at the market to bump up the gdp. made me feel quite virtuous, they did. lara has designed and knit the most beautiful sweater i have ever seen in my life (heeheehee), of course didn't get a photo, will ask angela.

karen kindly brought me 3 yarn choices to pick from for the squirrel and oak leaf mittens.

friday night was the fibertraditions get together. we had me, denise, marti, loren, jessica, angela, holly, katie swanson, sandy blue, nancy, sam, stephanie, barb, holly, jen. i wish i had had more to talk to everyone! hopefully next year...

saturday's classes were spinning cashmere and spinning for color. maybe i should have gone to bed earlier friday.
the cashmere class was wonderful, i got to sit next to katie. the samples judith brought were breathtaking. the first was a cashmere jacket, 200 years old, the background is very finely woven black cashmere in a herringbone pattern, with gorgeous flowers embroidered all over.

the second was a lovely jacquard woven paisley shawl.

the third was an indigo dyed shawl woven by judith. soft as a cloud :-)

i am not as good a cashmere spinner as a lace spinner. heh heh, maybe that's good for my pocketbook.

the afternoon class was all about color and spinning. the main exercise was picking 4 colors from the rainbow of merino dyed top, then spinning across the top of 3, dropping and adding a color. i don't do well with the muching across the top, later judith showed us how to take a staple length of all 4 colors on a comb, and pulling them through a diz. this would be a better method for me.

saturday night was the banquet, replete with petit fours decorated with christmas wreaths and candy canes, hmmmm. we all stayed up way too late knitting and chatting on the third floor, thank god i hadn't taken any classes sunday!

sunday denise packed up, then we hit the market. can you say buy 4 get one free koigu? most of sunday was spent knitting with katie and marti, it was so nice to get to know them both better.
poor suzanne must have been exhausted, marti and i both snapped this photo. suzanne did a marvelous job putting the whole retreat together.

and i leave you with my olymic sweater, basking in the fireglow.