[album 65561 GoofyHen2.JPG]
I'll have you know that She Who Must Not Be Named slept in until 9AM this morning. This is an unprecidented lapse of puritan good sense. You should SEE what those dogs have done to this place in her absence! Up there by that lake [with CASINOS within eyeshot!] playing with wool.... tsk tsk. Time to get back to work!
It's a rainy day here, at least for the moment, and I'm enjoying every drop. There are still some of my plants in the back yard that are drinking it in. They haven't had quite enough moisture and I can HEAR them sighing in relief.
The retreat was in a word, fantastic. Having such a large block of uninterrupted time with women of wicked skills, has expanded my knitting brain to the bursting point.
One of my projects today is to compile a new knit list that includes the new things I learned from my knitterly friends. I took a class in 'freeform knitting that had us knitting a few rows of random stitches and then passing our work to the left, needles and all, then knitting off someone else's work. That was a hoot. But it was one project that the teacher brought out to show us that has my knitting wheels turning. It was basically an irregular block of guage swatches that had been sewn together and then lightly felted. Wow. It was like a mosaic tile effect. It's on my list.
Then someone taught me how to make the easiest ever mitered square that some of us were making for a wedding blanket for our web master. I have that on the list for a felted book bag project.
I got to watch someone else work thier first needle felting project and I cannot wait to go get the tools for this technique. Fortunatly for me they are very simple ones. The possibilities are endless.
And lastly I bought a knitting book on the way up to the retreat that has some felted projects that just make my fingers itch to cast on.
It's going to be a busy winter in the knitting department.
Before I share some pictures of the trip with you, I just have to say that I am truly blessed to be part of this group of women with stellar skills and generous good humor. I'm a better knitter today than I was four days ago!
My favorite shot of the trip:
[album 65561 Tahoe Wave Puddles.jpg]
A little ways down the shore from the first:
[album 65561 Tahoe Aspens.jpg]
A pond on an old private estate, that has now been turned over to the Forest Service. They have restored it beautifully:
[album 65561 Tahoe Fish Pond.jpg]
By the way, there was a large trout moseying around in that pond. He was eatin' size too...
And finally a Douglas Squirrel [it was a new one to me]. You are truly blessed to be able to see this picture, because miliseconds later he was thirty feet away yelling at me. I didn't even think I got this shot. I was shocked when I downloaded the pictures and there he was. Meet Mr. Speedy Douglas Squirrel:
[album 65561 Tahoe Squirrel.jpg]
I'm already counting the days until we go on another retreat. Though I AM going to need some time for my knitting skull to expand, because if I learned one more thing right away, it might explode on me.
(I wonder if the explosion would contain yarn barf?)*
(Just an idle thought....)
*The tangle of yarn you sometimes get when trying to find the starting end from the insides of a skein of yarn.
P.S.
I didn't win the hat contest for my catagory. And frankly didn't deserve to. Even I voted for the winning hat which was a marvel of clever and delightfulness. I'll try to get a picture of it for you from our guild web site when it gets posted.