Make One Yarns Fall Knitting Retreat (or Myrna's attempt at recapturing her college drinking days)

I'm just warning you right at the start.. this is gonna be a LOOOONNGGGGG post, so if you're looking for a chance to escape the details of my most AWESOMEist (it's a word, damnit!) weekend, close the window and go about your day.... On the other hand, if you want to see what happens when Myrna drinks alcohol for the first time in, probably, ten years.... stay tuned.....

This was the weekend that I've been looking forward to all year, the Make One fall knitting retreat of 2008. It was super, fantastic, amazing, awesome, incredible, fabulous, and.... exhausting. There were stars! REAL LIVE knitting Super Stars!!! Including Nancy Bush of Lace Knitting fame, Amy Singer of Knitty, Cookie A sock goddess extraordinaire, Stephanie Japel the author of Fitted Knits and Glam Knits and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, aka the Yarn Harlot.

The first night was a chance to meet new people and get the excited butterflies out of my system... The best way to do that??? BOOZE..... I finally found a drink that I like to drink and it was dubbed (by one of my new friends) SSK, which in knitting is way to decrease stitches by "Slip, Slip, Knit", but in this case meant "Sip, Sip, Keel". If you want one.... don't ask for a SSK (unless you want the bartender/server to look at you like you've grown an extra head), ask for Peach Schnapps, Banana Liqueur, Pineapple juice, Ginger Ale and a shot of Grenadine... trust me, it's awesome, but deadly..... Christina and I went to the lounge with a couple of our new friends and I made my first attempt at embarrassing myself. It was somewhat successful (let's face it, showing off the tattoo just above your ass in a lounge is always good for some embarrasement), but the last night was much more so (and also involved showing off my tattoo, but at least I wasn't the only one)....... Here's a picture of a Blue Hawaii... I wanted to like it because it was pretty and smelled like chocolate, but I just could.not.do.it. OK, I couldn't do ALL of it... I did manage about half....



Here is a view from our room




Friday was a full day class with Stephanie Japel on knitting raglan sweaters from the top down. It was really, really great. Exactly what I was hoping for, the details of "how" to create your own perfectly fitted sweater, not the blind following of a pattern (this has always been my preferred method, I love to follow rules and patterns have rules) which, more often than I care to admit, can lead to a fit disaster. I was very busy with math this day and totally didn't get an opportunity to take pictures, although she graciously autographed her books at the end of class. I asked her to sign the page in her book that has a rather large mistake (wrong pattern for the picture).... who knows, it might be worth something someday...... She signed: "Well - I hope you're right & this 1st edition with misprint will increase greatly in value for you!!! Thanks for coming to workshop & asking such great questions" I really liked Stephanie. She is a great teacher!




Friday night was actually pretty mellow, I think everyone was pretty tired and trying to save their strength for the following evening's pajama party (I can't WAIT to tell you about that!).

Saturday Morning I took one of Cookie A's sock classes "how to knit a toe up sock with a gusset". It was also fantastic! Short row heels just don't work for me (fit-wise), but I really like the idea of working socks from the toe up. There are some real advantages to this method, not the least of which is being able to split your yarn into two equal balls and just knitting until the yarn is gone. I made a little miniature sock which I cleverly (although, probably not uniquely) photographed in class with Cookie in the background.



Saturday afternoon was "Stump Steph" with Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. I was able to ask all of my questions which by that time had exceeded nine (everyone else had far fewer). Not bad, considering that before the class started, I had planned to listen to other questions and not ask any of my own..... But Stephanie answered them all.... and yes, she is JUST as funny in person as you think she is and yes, she really, really, really knows a lot about knitting and the history of knitting. I could talk to her all day and not be bored even once....

I asked her to hold the sock I knit in Cookie A's class.... this pleased me rather a lot, I must say..... In a "two birds with one stone" way....



After Stephanie's class, it was time for dinner (we did have a 2 hour break in which I went for a walk with some great new friends and did a 20 minute stew in the hot tub) and the pajama party. I had seen Amy and Sandra (the owners of Make One) in their pjs already and decided (and convinced Christina, I don't think she thanked me for that for some reason..... ) to wear mine to dinner as well.... It would have been great, but for two things. The first was that we had to walk through the fancy restaurant of the hotel to our private room at the back.... in our pajamas... at dinnertime... with a full restaurant..... This was horribly embarrasing and yet VERY humorous. The second was that of the nearly 100 knitters, only about 7-10 had on their pajamas..... sigh... See... lots of knitters and NO pjs....



The Table of GREATNESS: Seated are, from left to right, Cookie A, Stephanie Japel, Amy Singer, Amy Swenson, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (the people not seated are other knitters)




A picture of myself and Sandra (one of the owners of Make One)



Me in my "Racing Stripes" (an inside joke, started by Christina, which only those in the "know" will understand) at dinner, which I thought was funny (everything was funny this weekend) because the table was set formally.



My total lack of caring about nutrition... notice the lack of veggies on my plate...



And after dinner the REAL fun began... for me anyway because I started drinking my SSKs..... I also learned why it is VERY important to NOT knit while heavily intoxicated..... Notice the rather deformed toe on my sock..... it was much more dramatic in person, trust me.




I know what you're thinking... it's ONLY three drinks for cryin' out loud!, but remember... I'm little, I don't drink AND each of those babies had more than two full ounces of liquor (the bartender liked me... or so I like to believe)..... I was VERY, VERY happy..... I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my entire life. I had the vague thought, through my alcohol induced haze, that I might actually do some internal damage from the intensity of my laughter...... but I seem fine today (internally at least). I was even able to repair the sock and show you what you CAN drink while knitting......




Here is Amy (the other owner of Make One) and a knitting star in her own right.



And Stephanie Japel....



And The Yarn Harlot.



I had a TON of fun and met some really funny, smart, interesting new friends (you know who you are....) and I'm already starting the countdown for next year......

and if the photos are weird, I apologize.... the uploader wasn't working properly tonight....