First Annual Southeastern Men's Knitting Retreat

I just spent the weekend with Lou, Steve and Rob in South Carolina at the first SEMKR retreat and had a great time. I've always wanted to attend one of the men's knitting retreats and they have been too far away or too cost prohibitive for me. Now we have started a new tradition here in the Southeast thanks to Rusty who put the whole thing together! It was so much fun getting to know other men from around the area and spend the weekend knitting, talking, taking classes and learning new techniques. It just went by WAY too fast. The retreat center, Asbury Hills Retreat Center, was very nice and comfortable and a great place for our retreat. We had two large cabins with very nice rooms. The food was good, not gourmet by any means, but very tasty. I met several guys that I hope I will see again in the future at some point. Hopefully all will return next year.

I took several pictures on our field trip to the North Woods Farm on Saturday to see the alpacas and mill. We had a great time getting to see all the alpacas and a tour of the mill by Teri. They also have a sweet little dog in the shop named Molly that I fell in love with and would have liked to sneak home in my bag. I bought 1.5 pounds of dark gray/black cria roving and I can't wait to see how it spins up.

I have two knitting projects going on the needles right now. One is a shawl for one of Michael's sisters called the Garden Path Shawl and I'm knitting it with Lion Brand Woolease in a light heather gray. I thought the pattern would be fairly simple, and it is since it is all garter stitch (no purls), but there are sooo many yarn over's and decreases on some of the pattern lines that it takes more concentration than I thought it would. Every other row is just plain knit though, so that's a no-brainer row at least. The other project is the Hemlock Ring Blanket from Brooklyn Tweed. I'm using some Cherry Tree Hill kettle dyed yarn I bought years ago from Whole Nine Yarns when they first opened. It's mostly dark purple with just a little pink subtly mixed in. I'm thinking about adding in some short rows between the "fans" and then continue on in the round to make a larger blanket. I need to take some pictures and add them to my Ravelry page too.

Once I get the pictures from the retreat downloaded I'll share them.