Pictures From The Retreat

OK, here are the long-awaited pictures from last weekend's retreat in Eureka Springs

That is the meeting room before everyone arrived.


Kate, Janice, and Cassandra on the vending side of the meeting room.


This is the parking area outside the lodge. We were way down in a "holler". Seriously, the road was not paved and super steep. I told people that was their bonus thrill ride feature. Cell phones didn't even work down there. To check voicemail or make a call you had to drive to the top of the hill.


The stash swap corner. I have probably half of that in a big sack riding around in my truck waiting for me to take it by the cancer support house to be made into afghans.


Teresa finished her Interlocking Cables sweater!! (That link goes to a pdf file of the pattern.)


Everyone working at the big table area. I think we all had a good time. I know I did anyway...even if it did make me way tired :)

I Need To Slow Down

I am just now sort of recovered from my weekend.

The Retreat went really well. Everyone seemed like they had a good time and I broke exactly even on the rental of the place. I did spend a little extra on door prizes if you count that, but I don't cause it was stuff I already had laying around the house mostly. haha I guess this means that yes, I'll have to do it again next year.

Pictures are on the Flickr photostream, but I will add a few to this entry probably later tonight. If you can't wait then go check them out on the Flickr. Just click my badge link over there on the right, then click the link to view the photostream once you get there.

I didn't knit one stitch at the retreat. I spent all my time spinning. Now I want to spin all the time at home too, but I've been busy every night this week with Rollerderby league business so that has had to wait. Stitch n Bitch is tonight, and even though it makes people stare at me I am seriously thinking about dragging the Louet wheel down there. I bought some really pretty gray roving with just a little blue sparkley stuff in it that I want to ply with some stuff I spun up at the retreat from a handpaintedyarn.com roving in the "paris night" colorway. Oh, I also got myself a tensioned lazy kate so wanting to play with that probably ads to my motivation to spin something I can ply with it. haha

Sunday seriously kicked my butt. I drove two and a half hours from Eureka Springs to home, went out to lunch with Husband Boy, then came home, changed clothes, and drove an hour to derby practice and a meeting. I was still all loopy on allergy medicine and sinus stuff and antibiotics so I didn't make it all the way through practice. I had to give up once I got dizzy and saw some spots flying around. That was no fun. I hope I can do better this week. I was so frustrated with myself that after I got home I just fell over and cried. I guess I'm too old to be trying to do that kind of stuff on three or four hours of sleep.

The Sick

This is just about the worst time possible for me to be sick so of course I am. grrrr
This coming weekend is the SNB Arkansas Retreat in Eureka Springs. I'm teaching two classes, doing a demo, and hosting if my voice works by then. I've got super super bad allergies which led to super bad sinus crud which led to the start of an ear thing and some dizzy falling into stuff. I started Antibiotics for all this last night. I have the heavy duty allergy meds in me and I got a shot they called a "sinus
cocktail" at the doctor's office. Let's hope this gets me good to go by Friday. At least I'm not contageous, but I really really really want to be able to skate Sunday night at Rollerderby practice and I don't want to be all snotty and grossing people out at the retreat so cross your fingers for me and everyone who will have to be around me on that.
I'm just knitting on the Jaywalker socks and doing my best to breathe. Check out my flickr photostream or elabeth.livejournal.com if you want to see pictures of the garden and the yard flowers. At least that stuff is working out OK so far. bleh.

"Everything popular is wrong"

That was my quote of the day from Gmail. haha
This week I've been crazy busy with skating stuff, garden stuff, and
planning for the big SNB Arkansas Spring Fiber Arts Retreat do-hickey
that takes place next weekend. I have 17 people signed up, all the
classes have at least one student, and we're figureing out what food
to bring for our potluck Friday night dinner which could turn into
leftovers potluck Saturday lunch. haha It's gonna be fun and relaxing
for everyone I hope. This is the first big thing like this I've
organized so I'm kind of nervous about how it will turn out.
I planted some peas and broccoli in the garden, and tomorrow I hope to
get some more stuff going. I think it is pretty safe to say there will
be no more frosts till fall. We've had highs in the 80's and lows in
the 50's-60's all week. Bring on the Spring/Summer weather please. :)
While I'm making requests, someone also please make the squirrels stop
chewing the tops off my tulips. It's still going on and I'm more than
a little fed up with it.
Mostly I've just been knitting on the unfinished socks. I have three
pair of toe-up socks and the Jaywalker socks not complete. I ordered
some more size 1 dpn's so I can start ANOTHER pair of Jaywalkers too.
So yeah...warm weather equals sock knitting time over at my house.
Most of those haven't been worked on since last fall.
Rollerderby is going pretty good. My friend Candyce and I found a good
place to skate outside yesterday. There is an outdoor stage/theater
thing down by the river that has a slightly banked, polished concrete
backstage area. There were lots of little rocks, but next time I'm
bringing the pushbroom. We can skate hard up the slope then coast back
down and skate up it again. Now I just need to learn to do a running
start on my toestops and I'll be happy.

I'm An April Fool

Here it is! Charlotte's Web done in Noro Kureyon instead of Koigu:

I cut my head off because I'm wearing a do-rag and my hair needs dye something terrible. I swear I'm planning on doing that this evening. Want a close-up of the Charlotte goodness?

Awesome, isn't it? I looooove this shawl! I might need another one someday.
EDIT: I used size 10.5 needles and either 3 or 4 skeins of yarn. I didn't keep track of how many skeins very well, but I just kept going until it was the pre-blocking size on the pattern and then used maybe another 1/4 - 1/2 skein on top of the 3-4 for fringe. So buy yourself 4 or 5 skeins if you plan on trying this at home.

So today is April 1st - Flash Your Stash Day. I had hoped to have the yarn room all organized by now, but my brain and all my spare time for the last two weeks has been eaten by Rollerderby so that room is still a huge mess. Here is the wall of stash in all it's messy glory:

Scary, no? I can't find anything in there anymore. That is just the yarn. That doesn't include the UFO bins or the fiber stash closet. I need to stop buying yarn and fiber for a while. If only so I can afford to get all the skate wheels and pads and a helment and stuff. I'm kind of afraid I'm going to suck at this skating thing, but at least it is giving me the motivation I needed to eat better and work out more.

I'm still waiting on my final Secret Pal package which contains the identity of my super secret pal. She lives in Canada, so those customs guys are holding my package for goodness knows how long. They need to give it up already. This time around I was the secret pal of Raellyn over at KY Ducky. I hope she liked her final package, and I hope she read the email I sent her letting her know who I am. I haven't heard from her in a while, so I also hope she's doing OK.
That's all I've got right now. I'm off to finish the laundary.