Spinning retreat - 2011

Old Orchard Inn was the location for this year's spinning retreat. Hosted by the Potluck Spinners, we spun and talked and shopped, ate and spun some more.

Several of us met for dinner before the formal, and that's a relative term, began. It just means the bar was open.
There were vendors, with much to savour and delight. All my pre-planning and budgeting was forgotten 5 feet into the room. That's another story though.

Pia had three beautiful tapestries on display. I might be wrong but I believe the yarn was hand spun and dyed.


There was fun contest for spinning local skeins.

My favourite three were pet based. One spinner had some photos of the cat she had raided for its fur,
while another put a whole new value on dust bunnies. Maybe she had groomed her Tibetian Spanial, Nova Scotian Duck Tolling Retriever and Himalyian cat, but I also suspect she grabbed every dust bunny in sight to get this lovely skein spun.

In addition, in the upper photo, there is a lovely skein made from river grass by 16 year old Mira, who won the scholarship to the retreat.

Lois is not grimacing in pain, she is laughing her head off. Lois figured out a new way to wind a ball of yarn directly off her spinning wheel.

Inge from New Brunswick showed off her fantastical skein winder. It was made for her by a friend. It has a clicker to keep track of how many yards or metres are wound on, some piece of curly cue that none of us figured out and we forgot to ask about.

Jolene, who is an ace, gave me a very good lesson on drop spindle-ling. The stunning shawl on her chair was spun and knit by her. The spinning took place while at work, on her breaks, about 12 metres per break. That is perseverance. Jolene's generosity and story gave me a whole new outlook on the drop spindle and about the nature of achievement.

Richard Ashford from Ashfords (wheels and looms and other bits) was the key note speaker.

He gave us a charming slide show about the history of his family's business. He did this with great grace after a day of giving several short seminars, repairing everyone's wheel, and talking to just about every person any where near him.

Without any come hither look on my part, Richard sat down across from me at the dinner. It helped that we were among the last 5 people to sit down, but I expected that every woman in the room had saved him a place. Richard's business is outside Christ Church, New Zealand. It is still within the zone of tremors that are being experienced, over 8000 to date. We have family in Christ Church and it was good to get an eye witness report of the situation. Not good.

But we did manage to have a fun dinner since both Richard and I are both very entertaining.