Creative Knitting Retreat 2017 Wrap Up

What a great weekend we had here at the farm for my last Creative Retreat of 2017. I hosted 8 enthusiastic and fun knitters for two days of color, knitting, embroidery, and afghan making. I could tell as they were walking in the door that it was going to be a good time. Most of the women came alone but it didn't take long for them to all become friends. 

On Day One we talked about color and I introduced them to an easy way to make up their very own color combinations for projects. 

Then we moved on to embroidery on knitting. 

They all picked it up quickly and produced some beautiful little samplers. 

In the afternoon, they worked on their Sunflower Fair Isle Pillows. They all learned to sew and cut a steek, how to pick up stitches, and how to make a mitered corner. And then they began embroidering their sunflower swatch.

And that was Day One! It was a full day to say the least. 

Day Two's Subject was my Crazy Embroidered Swatch Afghan. This project was featured in Crafting a Colorful Home. It is a project I had been thinking about for many, many years - turning all my swatches that I used for designing sweaters into a blanket for a bed. When I was deciding what to to teach at the Creative Knitting Retreat last March, I thought this might be a fun idea. Luckily, my intuition was correct. 

The students came armed with bags of swatches that they have been making all summer. 

I taught them how to turn them into an afghan. We also learned how to dye their swatches with acid dyes so that they could turn their "wrong color" swatches into a shade that would work with the rest of their swatches. Here is some of the progress that was made.

We even experimented with painting a swatch with fabric paint to change the color of the fabric. 

It really was a fun weekend.  I hope they all finish their projects and keep building their swatch afghan. It really could become a lifetime project. 

If you want to be notified of Upcoming Creative Retreats that I hold a few times a year at our farm, sign up for my Newsletter on the top right side of this blog. You'll get notice when the classes open up for registration along with monthly news on the creative things I have been doing and finding in my world.