Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat is a great knitting convention that is in it's 10th year.  The retreat is so popular that people attempt to register as soon as registration opens on the website.  Last year the number of people attempting to register took down the servers.  This year's retreat was February 12-15 with registration opening at 1pm PST on November 13th.  I decided to get ready by going to website at 11am.  I noticed that registration was already open so I immediately signed up for 4 classes and got all my first choices: Latvian Mittens with Beth Brown-Reinsel, Estonian Lace with Nancy Bush, Double Knitting with Lucy Neatby and Steeks with Janine Bajus.  I also arranged to share a room at the hotel as I didn't want to commute from Seattle to Tacoma every day.

On Wednesday 2/11, I packed my suitcase and took the #39 bus downtown to have lunch with George.  I then took the Sounder commuter train from Seattle to Tacoma and then the Tacoma Link light rail from the train station to 2 blocks from the Hotel Murano.  My hotel room had a view of Mt. Rainier.  (Look to the left of the Tacoma Dome's white root.  Mt. Rainier is kind of blending in with the clouds.)



Hotel Murano dedicates each floor to a different glass artist.  My floor was for a Japanese artist whose name I forgot to write down.  Her featured piece was a long canoe-shaped boat with a girl in a dress at one end and a rabbit-headed figure in the same dress at the other.  It was quite lovely.

I met Jen and Fred Hagan for dinner that night at Paddy Coyne's on Pacific Ave at 9th.  My roommate for Madrona, Barbara Mormile, joined us.  It was fun to catch up with Fred and Jen who weren't attending Madrona this year.  After dinner I was so exhausted that I was in bed by 10pm.