KnitCircus Spring Retreat 2012 - Day ONE

A couple of weeks ago (that's how far behind I am on blogging)  I attended my very first KnitCircus Spring Retreat.in Madison Wisconsin.


I love listening to the KnitCircus Podcast with Jaala & Amy.  Since Madison is a fairly short drive from here in Central Illiana....I thought the time was right to check it out.

Day ONE

To start with, I attended by myself.  No friends, cohorts, knitting buddies, etc.  I can't believe how much I enjoyed the alone time.  I think I needed that.  I had a leisurely six hour drive up.  I stopped whenever I wanted, listened to my favorite guilty pleasure music, sang loudly & mostly off key all the way.  That by itself was quite fun.

Picture from www.knitandsip.com

I checked in to the hotel, freshened up & headed to The Sow's Ear to meet up with Jaala & her Retreat guest, Stephannie Tallent.  Stephannie shared her new book, California Revival Knits in its pdf form. (more on that later).  I met several of the local knitters, had a bit of dinner there.  I love the idea of a combo tea/sandwich shop and a yarn store.

While chatting with Stephannie I realized I missed an email about the class.  I had HOMEWORK!  This naturally meant I should purchase new yarn & needles for this.  Who cares that I travel with an entire arsenal of needles, notions, etc.  Doesn't everyone travel with a yarn swift & ball winder in the trunk of their car?

I purchased a set of ChiaGoo Circulars & some Alicia Goes Around Bison in a lovely shade of purple. Which I will tell you all about as soon as I find the ball band.  I seem to be cursed with ball band issues.  I have every band from every yarn I have ever used....however, I can never find it when I need it.  I hear there  is something called "organization" that helps with this problem.  I should give it a try sometime.
 ( I ended up not using this yarn for the cuff. It deserves it's own project.)


Then I headed back to the hotel with only a minor detour.  I really am not a fan of "round-abouts".  I felt like Chevy Chase in European Vacation.  I only went around a couple of times while trying to remember the name of the road I needed to get off on.  I guessed wrong and had to try it again.

Picture from CAltran

Back at the hotel I started the cuff for the class.  I will admit that the steel cable on the ChiaGoo Circs are not to my taste.  I am sure they have lots of fans (or they wouldn't still be making them) but I like a bit more flexibility in a cable.  Just my preference, not meant to be a criticism.  So I switched back to my KnitPicks dpns, whipped out a cuff, made an error somewhere along the way,  ribbing was off,  turns out I can't count, ripped that out & re-knit it.  All done .........oh, wait I forgot I hadn't finished the homework for the other class & it was first.  Better get that done before I sleep,  might not get up early enough to take care of that.

I set the alarm on my phone, turned in for the night.  Hmm, what if it didn't go off.  I should set the hotel alarm clock too.  Ok, done.  Go to sleep!  No wait, I have never used this alarm before, what if it doesn't even work.  Better get a wake up call just to be safe.  Ok, now I can rest....not actuallly sleep because the couple in the next room is having quite a loud disagreement.  It seems they have been married nearly 60 years, you would think after that long they would have run out of things to fight about?

That covers Day One.  Tune in tomorrow when I finally talk about the actual "Retreat"!  

See you then