I've actually started to miss blogging. I had switched all my knitting activity over to Ravelry, but have missed being able to track the progress of a project with photos and comments. Ravelry is more a place to post a completed knitting project rather than the process. That's what I plan to do here.

I bought a bunch of different colours of Manos del Uruguay Wool Clasica at the Madrona 2009 marketplace.  I had bought a bunch of colours last year at the Seattle Knitters' Guild's Fiber Frenzy meeting.  With all the wool, I thought I should finally knit the "15 Easy Pieces Kimono Jacket" pattern that I've had for practically forever.  I didn't have the pattern with me when I bought the yarn and ended up not having enough of any one colour for the larger sections so I thought I'd be clever and make the jacket a patchwork of the colours I did have.  This is what I got:

The chestnut red in the left body really clashed with the reddish-orange I used for the shoulders and upper arms:

I broke down and bought 2 more skeins of the dark sage (top of three colour strips) and 1 more skein of the navy blue I used on the right side.  The jacket pieces are looking much better now.  I feel as if I have knitted the jacket twice so it's a good thing I'm enjoying the process.

I had a afternoon class (3 hours) "Double Up & Around! Circular Double Knitting Techniques" with Lucy Neatby.  Double knitting is a technique for knitting two layers on one set of needles.  Using this technique the knitter can switch the yarn colours and end up with a reversible scarf or blanket, etc. with the design in reversed colours.  Lucy used her DVD Double Knitting Delights as a teaching aid.  It was great to see the technique being taught shown on a large screen while Lucy went around to help individuals.  I much preferred it over gathering around a teacher to look over their shoulders while they demonstrated a technique.

I had a lot of fun in the class as Lucy is a great teacher and double knitting is a fun technique.  I did have problems with the technique for knitting a pocket on a single-knit fabric using double-knitting so immediately after class I started another pocket to get the movements "into" my fingers.  My sampler started with the double cast-on for two layer knitting, then reversing the colours, then single layer knitting with double-knitted pocket.

I went to the marketplace after the class and bought copies of almost all of Lucy Neatby's DVDs: Double Knitting Delight, Intarsia Untangled 1 & 2, Knitting Essentials 1 & 2, and Finesse Your Knitting 1 & 2.  I feel these DVDs will come in very handy for remembering/learning new techniques and tricks to improve my knitting.

Saturday evening was the retreat banquet.  We had the surprise of a barber shop quartet showing up to sing.  One of the attending women's husband had hired the quartet to give his wife flowers and a song for Valentine's Day.  The quartet sang a couple of additional songs to the delight of the attendees.

Elsebeth Lavold was the featured speaker.  She talked about her history in knitting design.  She had lots of photos and was very interesting especially when talking about needing to invent new knitting techniques to display the sharp changes in viking cables and runes.  I plan to go to her exhibition "Knitting Along the Viking Trail" at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle before it closes.

I didn't have a class in the morning so I got up a little later and after breakfast headed over to the marketplace in the pavilion.  I figured that after Cat Bordhi's talk the evening before a lot of people would be looking for her books.  I eventually found a copy of New Pathways for Sock Knitters in a booth that seemed to have nothing to do with socks.

I then settle down in the main part of the pavilion to work on finishing my Estonian lace sampler.  I sat at a table next to Syne Mitchell's loom and talked a little weaving while knitting.

Syne was teaching classes on weaving for knitters using rigid heddle looms at the retreat.  She let me weave a few wefts on her 4 harness loom.  I discovered that treadling gives a weaver a real leg workout especially since Syne had put bungee cords on hers to create a higher shed.

I finished knitting my lace sampler around noon and was able to show it to Nancy Bush later that day while having her sign her book on Estonian Lace.  She said she was happy to see that someone had finished the sampler instead of leaving it half done after class was over.  Nancy also signed the copy I picked up of her Folk Knitting in Estonia book.

One of the women who had finished the sampler in class had blocked it in her hotel room Friday night.  She had it draped over her spinning wheel cover on Saturday and it was gorgeous.  I blocked out my sampler once I got home.  I've been showing it to everyone I see.

I took an all-day (6 hour) class on Estonian Lace from Nancy Bush.  The defining feature of Estonian lace is the nupp (rhymes with "soup").  We worked on a small scarf with a scallop edging, 32 nupps and a row of K3tog, yo, k3tog that resulted in hourglass shapes.  This is the most complicated lace I have ever knitted.  I got up through the hourglasses during 6 hours of class.

When I originally looked at Estonian lace patterns, I wondered why anyone would want to have bobbles all over a scarf or shawl.  Bobbles would dig into one's back when leaning against a chair.  I happily learned that nupps, while giving a great sense of definition to a pattern, are almost flat and won't be irritating to wear.

Two women actually finished the sampler in class which I found very impressive.  My sampler has several errors but I kept reminding myself that Nancy said it's just practice and don't rip back.  I concentrated on learning the techniques and am happy with the final result.

Right after class, I went to the marketplace and bought a copy of Nancy Bush's Knitted Lace of Estonia.  I plan to knit a lace scarf pattern that Nancy had published in Interweave Knits magazine.  The pattern has about 240 nupps so I should be quite good at knitting them by the time I finish the scarf.

Friday was another day full of learning and I was exhausted after class.  I relaxed for awhile and ate dinner.  Then I went to the Teacher's Gallery presentation in the ballroom.  Cat Bordhi gave a talk on creativity and design that I found very inspiring.  After her talk, I wandered among the displays of the various teachers' knitting.  Some truly beautiful knitting art was shown, and I was able to touch and examine it in detail.

I eventually ended up in "The Living Room" on the mezzanine and finished the Hourglass Scarf I had been knitting for relaxation. (Deb is wearing the scarf in this picture.)

I had an all-day (6 hours) Latvian Mittens class with Beth Brown-Reinsel.  There were about 20 of us in the class, 3 to a table.  Beth took us through a two-colour cast on and half-braid, a lace scallop, and fringe in the morning session.  I hated doing the fringe.  Turns out my yarn was the wrong type.  I had brought 4 different colours of Lorne's Lace Shepherd Sport, a slippy superwash wool when I should have used a stickier wool yarn.  Everyone who had a sticky yarn like Vuorelma Satakieli loved knitting the fringe and its look.  Everyone with a slippery yarn hated knitting the fringe. You can see in the photo how badly my fringe came out - uneven loops, wrong facing loops, etc.

In the afternoon session, Beth took us through a herringbone braid and the various ways to hold and knit with 3 colours in one row.  She had 6 people at a time come up and look over her shoulders while she demonstrated the various ways.  I practiced a couple and decided I like two colours in my right hand and one in my left hand for 3 colour knitting.

As class was ending, the woman sitting next to me showed me a different way to do a SSK and I practiced that on my sampler.  (Usually a SSK is slipping a stitch as if to purl, slipping another stitch as if to purl, and then knitting the two stitches together.  She showed me slipping the first stitch as if to knit, slipping the second stitch as if to purl, and then knitting the two stitches together.  This results in an SSK decrease that more closely mirrors a K2Tog decrease.)

I had dinner that evening at the Bite Restaurant on the 4th floor of the Hotel Murano with my roommate and two other knitters we ran into in the waiting line.

All-in-all a very enjoyable day packed with learning.