Sunday, November 7, 2010

The Not-So-Silent Retreat Scarf

It's Knitters Review Retreat time! My fourth year.

When I tell people I'm going on a knitting retreat, they have visions of devout women silently knitting. A soft and gentle scene.

Nothing could be further from this! Picture Times Square on New Years Eve. OK, it's not quite that. . . but almost.

100 or so women (and a few men) all chatting, laughing, gawking at our beautiful knitted sweaters, shawls, hats. Catching up with each other, telling jokes, sharing techniques, asking advice. Connecting our Knitters Review and Ravelry names with our real names, looking for old friends and getting to know new friends. There's a whirl of color and happy noise!

And our hands are busy knitting, knitting, knitting.

The first year I went to the Retreat, I brought a sock with me. Big mistake! Tiny needles, thin yarn, yarnovers, a chart. A recipe for disaster! I learned that, for me, the Retreat wasn't the place where I could work on something that needed close attention.

The next two years, I went into mindless knitting mode for the Retreat. Last year, I worked on the Orange Baktus. Garter stitch. Size 5 needle. A four row repeat. Perfect! I was able to knit and talk at the same time!

So now came the decision for this year. What to do? I thought about the baktus and how I like the look of striped ones. Then I found a pattern for another equally easy scarf.



But I wasn't crazy about making another baktus. And, though I really liked the pattern for the other scarf, the yarn just didn't seem right for it.

This very long story does have a happy ending.



To be continued. . . .

4 comments:

Yesterukes said...

Sounds like fun. One day I'm going to do something like this. Have a wonderful time. And then tell us all about it.

stringplay said...

I love happy endings! Have a great time.

Anonymous said...

Those colors make the yarn quite exciting. Can't wait to read the rest of your story.

Bubblesknits said...

Yes, I dare say that we knitters are normally anything but silent. LOL