2018 Needler's Retreat

Last weekend, Jen, Barb, and I attended the Needler's Retreat sponsored and organized by Deb at Sheeps Ahoy. It takes place at the Glen House Resort on the Thousand Islands Parkway near Gananoque ON and there are 60+ attendees. We departed from home on Friday morning, stopping at several yarn and fabric shops on the way. We also dropped into Karen Keiser's rug-hooking studio just off the 401 in Belleville.

There, I had a quick intro to rug-hooking. All three of us purchased some of her lovely hand-dyed wool felt for appliqué projects. We also beheld some wonderful designs of Karen's.

Tesselations:

Elephants

Seahorses

Cat

etc.

We arrived in time to check in and get to the 'Meet and Greet' before dinner in the bar area where we signed up for 'Show and Tell' and our class schedules.

Jen and I stepped out on our balcony for a quick selfie.

We had a cozy fireplace in our room.

At 'Show and Tell' after dinner, a group of people showed off their Caitlyn Hunter 'Sunset Highway' sweaters.

This was one of her two sock yarn blankets completed since last year's retreat.

A beautiful crow sock. It was recommended that the beaks be done by duplicate stitch rather than trying to use a 3rd strand in the round.

 Robin and Nancy showed off their Fair City Knits "Up Helly Aa" sweaters. I believe Robin was a test knitter for the project.

 This would be such a fun knit. See the Viking heads and flames? Up Helly Aa is an annual event in Lerwick, Shetland on the last Tuesday of January. The day involves a series of marches and visitations, culminating in a torch-lit procession and the burning of the galley.

I loved this cow sweater.

The spots were added by duplicate stitch.

This was a very cool Christmas tree quilt. The blocks were knit in sequence very much like pieced quilting.

 During dinner the second night we had a discussion about sock heels. Here, a Fleegle heel was being displayed.

 One project bag had been specially made for the retreat by an attendee's very good friend.

On Saturday night at the raffle of donated items, Jen won a Shetland shawl and a rolled up, woven  needle case with knitting needles.

Barb won yarn

and I won all this loot in three draws.

The Joy of Color by Janine Bajus, Handywoman by Kate Davies, Laine - a book of patterns and recipes, and from Wild Wooly - a project bag, 2 soaps and a lotion bar. Wow!

Over the two days we took classes on reversible slip stitch knitting, knitting a set-in sleeve into an armhole, and designing asymmetric knits.

The sun even came out! This panoramic shot was taken from the deck off our classroom.

We love many things about the retreat: the cozy rooms, delicious food, seeing people from previous years, getting inspiration from everyone's 'Show and Tell' items, winning cool stuff at the raffles while supporting the scholarship program, getting away from our real lives for a couple of days, a beautiful drive through the autumn colours, the camaraderie of scores of people who really 'get' you, etc. etc.

We are already looking ahead to next year's retreat which will again be held on the first weekend of November.