Men's Spring Knitting Retreat 2009

Based on the number of blog entries, you'd never know it, but this event has been consuming my life for about a month now.

Already Losing Sleep
Last year's Men's Spring Knitting Retreat had me worried and remembering things I needed to do at 2:30 am every morning. This years event has me so excited, I feel like I'm 7 again, trying to get to sleep on Christmas eve.

The event for 2009 is almost filled, which is great...but the best part are the guys that have signed up. There are about 20 guys I know from the 2008 event who are quite incredible men, and in addition this year, there are a couple of guys who went to the West coast event and we even have our first international (sorry my lovely Canadians!)...intercontinental attendee. Do any of you remember the Australian Peter (Nanna) from the KnitList old days? He'll be joining us for the retreat.

In total, there will be about 45 guys at the event, and we've already got swag for them and offers from fiber sellers who want to promote their products (if anyone would like to be included in this, feel free to e-mail me at queerjoe@comcast.net).

Anyway, I have to keep subduing my excitement or I get a little over-stimulated. Jeez...it really is like I'm 7 again.

Current Knitting
I've made a little more progress on the stranded knitting pullover (about another inch) and it's coming along nicely. A progress picture seemed unnecessary, so I'll wait to post one until the next blog entry.

Current Spinning
I finally got back to my spinning (mostly because I know I will soon have another spinning project coming up that will be time-critical). I'm working on the second bobbin of Black Bunny Fibers merino singles that will hopefully make a beautiful water-blue laceweight yarn.



Now I know there's a lot going on in this photo, but I want you to focus on the fact that the bobbin with the less spun singles seems to be heavier than the one with more spun singles. This is not because the scale is out of balance...if you look closely, you'll see a couple of weights on top of the bobbin on the left (disregard the holographic image of Christ on the Cross who is about to covert to Christ ressurecting)...the weights are 1.5 ounces, which tells me how much more work I have to do to have equal amounts of singles on both bobbins!

Readers' Comments/Questions
Jo in Boston writes, "I like your stranded sweater very much. Is it blue or grey or somewhere in the middle?"

It's actually black (dark charcoal) and light tan. They were two of the colors on clearance at KnitPicks, and it looks like I have enough yarn to make two of these sweaters.

Tychoish writes, "Also I think it's entertaining how I'm working on a cabled sweater and a shawl and you're working on colorwork (though I suppose I do have a languishing project in that direction). We're going to have to switch back at some point."

That is kinda funny, and watching Kenny and Chris going through gyrations on how to do Lyra (a Niebling lace pattern), is making me want to start up my next lace project. Perhaps it will be Lyra as well now that Kenny has swatched every possible combination of needle and twisted vs. non-twisted stitches.