Stitching retreat 2014 – roundup

After the successful Stitching Retreat in 2013 in the past fall, it was time again to devote a weekend to fibre craft. Therefore, there is today a roundup for Stitching Retreat 2014.

Last weekend our already second Stitching Retreat was held in Fällanden (Switzerland). We rented a hostel for the weekend. The hostel is very beautifully situated at the Greifensee and is located approximately 15km from Zurich. This time, some things were new: the hostel was ours for two nights (instead of one night) and a knitting designer visited us and gave a course.

Because the hostel is self-catering, each participant brought something to eat. This worked so far always wonderful. This time we had two theme nights: Mexican and pasta. We started on Friday evening with a Mexican dinner.

After copious dinner followed by dessert, the needles were pulled out and diligently knitted, crocheted, embroidered and talk shop.

On Saturday morning, after breakfast with pancakes, fruit and freshly baked bread we were again working on our projects. Anyone who had questions about a subject, was able to report and several topics such as Fair Isle, swatches or fixing mistakes were discussed. So you could benefit from the knowledge of other participants and learn a lot of new things.

A small portion of the participants wanted to get a taste of the hand spinning. Claudia, who spins yarns and is an upcoming indie dyer, was so patient and gave us a brief introduction to the drop spindles. By the time we had the hang of it and began to spin. It’s all about the energy, isn’t it, Claudia? ;-)

This year I wanted to offer in addition to the open question and answer session and a course. In December, I was at the design fair in Lucerne. There I participated at the course “Pouf-knitting” and I thought to myself: “This is something for the girls in my knitting group!”

On Saturday afternoon came by Anne-Catherine Lüke of Knit Kit and has taught some interested people the Pouf-knitting. After the class, the girls were still working diligently to their poufs. The participants had great fun found to put me under pressure. Some of them were already quite a bit further than I with my pouf, which I started in December. The first poufs have already been finished by the beginning of this week. So I guess, they liked it.

We braved the rain and cold. Some walked along the lake and watched the fishermen. Others did some yoga. Later, we made the obligatory fire. There were salty and sweet things: Garlic bread and s’mores (heated marshmellows with chocolate is between two biscuits).

If you still had space in the stomach then, you could have a meal with spaghetti and homemade sauces. We talked late into the night, sitting by the fire and had fun.

After breakfast on Sunday we were so far, that we discussed the plying. On the picture above you see my progress after two days. On the left you see the drop spindle with alpaca wool, spun by the participant Vesna. On the right spindle you see my spindle and my first spun and plied yarn. YAY.

In the afternoon we packed all our stuff and cleaned the house. All pitched in and it went ahead afloat. Then we had to say goodbye. To be honest, the weekend passed by to quickly. But all are agree: WE WILL BE BACK!

As the organizer of this weekend I would like to thank all participants. Thank you for your company, great food, teach each other and help to clean the house. Thanks to you, this weekend was a success!

I feel exhausted and happy. I’ve acquired this weekend not only knowledge about fiber and spinning (thank you to the patient Claudia), but also a few kilos (thanks to everybody who brought something with).

If you want to see more, you must browse on the blogs of Claudia, Susanne and Murielle.

After the feedback I got, I’m motivated to organise more weekends like this. Well, I have already new ideas and improvements, but they remain secret for now :-)

See you next year!