this one time…again

yes its that time of year again. the wrap up from the annual CR&K Daisy Designs Knitting Retreat. Organised by my local yarn store, this is one of the highlights of my year, mostly because its not some big fancy posh thing, but a small gathering of people who already know each other, in very rustic but beautiful surrounds.

a few people who’ve been before couldnt make it this year, and we missed them, but some people who’ve been busy raising families came for the whole weekend, and the drop in numbers made for a smaller knitting circle, which meant everyone could join the conversation. there were no schisms or politics, everyone got along really well, and it had the feeling of good friends getting together for a really relaxing weekend of knitting, eating, drinking and laughing.

friday night we had dinner in front of the tv because of the royal wedding. as you may have guessed, i have no interest in things royal OR wedding, it irritates me that so much hype surrounds the marriage of two people who just happen to have been born into a particular bloodline, making them and their wedding no less special, romantic or beautiful than the thousands of others that happen around the world every day. but i did enjoy seeing her beautiful dress and the modern touch they tried to bring to a rather archaic tradition. we watched until the archbishop said ‘let us pray’ and about 5 of us said ‘lets not’ and we retired to the lodge to knit (and drink) for a few hours.

i was a bit under the weather, i woke up friday morning with a really bad head cold, that turned into the flu, and i thought for 5 seconds of not going to camp, and then sanity returned, i took a lot of drugs, and off i went. but i was pretty sick friday night and went to bed early. i was very grateful for my most excellent room mate kris, who also likes a nice civilised half hour of reading before lights out, and i think we both slept surprisingly well (as well as can be expected anyway). i was pretty ill on saturday morning too and groaned a bit before making a killer pot of coffee, taking more drugs, and beginning to feel a whole lot better.

it rained pretty heavily for most of saturday

but i dont think anyone complained too much. the scenery was still beautiful,

and we put the fire on and moved indoors. then suddenly, the lights went out! in fact, the entire camp lost power. but no one panicked. phone calls were made, generators, ladders, lights on strings, gas burners and camp torches acquired (thanks to trent and ailsa’s dad for helping us out there!) and knitcamp suddenly became, well, camp.

it was great fun though. it was hilarious watching people knit with lamps on their head or person

or, a la randomknits, casting on a new intarsia project with a torch under her chin. its never too dark to knit right? we did stop for a moment when kris brought the ukelele out and we sang our song that we’ve been practicing over the internet (amanda palmers ‘in my mind’). i had printed out some lyrics and we handed them around and people joined in for a second performance, and it was great, lots of knitters can also sing! even people who swore theyd never sing in public sang, and they sounded good! the only bad thing about the power going out was no hot shower sunday morning, and donna’s mai tai slushie bucket didnt freeze. i did see her with her head in it one time, contemplating just slurping it up with a straw,

but she resisted and stuck to the wine instead.

we had the usual trivia night on saturday night, and christine did a great job with her powerpoint presentation. the theme of the trivia was ‘all about knitting’, and it was quite interesting to find out what we did and didnt know about fibres, sheep, knitwear designers and where kerry has her holidays. there was much cheating of course, if you knew auslan you got a few freebies from rae, and if you’re like me and brazenly walk up to the white board and change your score from 37 to 39, you still lose by 2 points to the table with the two yarn store workers on it. hmph. then there was more knitting, drinking and eating of chocolate.

every year we also have a saturday night dress up theme, this year was ‘bollywood’ but we mostly decided it was too hard to put on sari’s in the dark. kris and i did put on some bling and make up (no decent photos sorry) and zena and charmaine managed to dress up like ‘nana mouskouri goes to the ashram’

(where’d you get those wigs Z?). i was asleep probably just after midnight, and in the morning there was evidence that Some People had partied on a little bit longer,

but really, everyone was pretty well behaved and not too wretched looking on sunday morning. sunday was glorious. the sun came out and we resumed our usual position of knitting along the wall.

it got warm enough at one point that cardigans were shed. there is nothing finer than hanging out with really great friends on a warmish sunday morning knitting and laughing and eating left over chocolate snowball-cookies for morning tea. i think some people had such a good time they didnt get much knitting done, or had to frog what they did do. i did some of the stripe study shawl, some of the greenfield cardigan, and got to the toe on the first conwy sock, which i finished off last night at home. so happy with this, and it fits trent perfectly.

overall, a great weekend. one of my best camp experiences ever. the camp organisers did such a great job of still managing to feed us with no electricity, and if it wasnt for wanting hot showers, i think we would have hung around a bit longer. but by 2pm were were all on our way home, with more memories, closer friendships, and yet more jokes about this one time, at knitcamp….

kxx