From Mona to Madrona
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Mona of Friday Harbor
Meet Mona of San Juan Island off Washington’s coast. She’s the friendly sort that comes over to greet you at the fence. She got a hold of my wrist and gummed it up a bit, but she really had a thing for Sivia Harding whose legged got nibbled on. [pictured in back: Miriam Felton, Amy O’Neill Houck, Jeny Staiman; front: Mona (Mona has a youtube video!) & Sivia] Mona lives down the road from the lakes where a group of us gathered last week to collect wisdom and guidance from each other and from our mentor Cat Bordhi, who plays the role of midwife to a number of designers hoping to give birth to their book ideas.
You Grand Rapids Yarnies sent a couple of gifts I was happy to deliver. Cat plans to put the peppermint bark from Shirley in her book storage building. When she goes there once a week to fulfill orders, the candy will be her reward. Jared Flood is so appreciative of the set of felted coasters from Ursula, and says the palette is perfect for his apartment. Cat, Jared and Cookie A all send their greetings to you.
On the day we arrived, Chrissy Gardiner took her Gardiner Yarn Works partner Donna, Carson Demers, and me on a tour of the island. I love her van because the back windows are plastered with her kids’ little fish and flower stickers. She also has a child protective lock feature in the back- it worked on me, too. See, Chrissy knows where the eagles are. We watched some adults and juveniles soaring and perching in the trees- look closely to find two. Then we made our way around to the Lime Kiln lighthouse, with long views toward Victoria and the Olympic peninsula.
The lodge had a great room with a fireplace and enough room to hold all twenty-five of us in a big oval. We ate all our meals together at one loooong table. Debbie our cook provided exceptional meals and desserts. One night she used the salted burnt sugar ice cream that Jeny made, served aside a ginger cake. We had jerusalem artichoke soup, salmon with capers, roasted beets, excellent salads- all so good. The cabins were cozy with a flip-the-switch fireplace we used often. A little porch overlooked a small lake with mergansers and other fowl. Fishing bobbers hung from the trees, past accidents that frustrated young fisherkids but lent some charm.
The retreat was an experience difficult to describe with words, and since we are sworn to secrecy anyway, I haven’t much I can share. Instead, I’ll share some memories that have nothing to do with anyone’s projects.
Sage Judith MacKenzie took some folks on a lichen collecting walk around our cabins. She knows more about fiber, plants, history and science than is humanly possible. You just wish you could be constantly by her side, not missing a thing she says. From the collected lichen, she made two dye pots on her stove. As the crispy bits of lichen deliquesced over two days, fibers took on an earthy tawny color. (Yes, learning that word was a highlight.) I tossed in the lightest-colored thing I had with me, a skein of Blue Moon STR lightweight in one of the Spirit colors, and let it cook. If you come to knitting on Tuesday, I’ll let you see and smell it. Did you know lichen is a key ingredient in Chanel Number Five? Later in the week I had to confess to Tina that I over-dyed her yarn; good thing she liked it, too. Another skein from the pot was team knitted into a cowl for Judith.
Judith also had with her a centuries-old sock from the Spanish Conquistadors. She confessed to wasting a lot of time looking for what they could have used to dye the medium tone brown stripe. Then one day she flipped it inside out only to discover it was a common darker brown that had just faded over the years.
To everyone’s delight, a number of dyers in the Northwest had donated garbage-bags full of yarn to the Visionaries. I’ll have that for show and tell Tuesday as well. To Stitch Jones, Abstract Fiber, Blue Moon, Pico Accuardi Dyeworks, and Lantern Moon - Thanks! The Pico Accuardi 100% superwash merino, dyed with both acid dyes and natural dyes, became a hat with a stitch pattern snagged from Sivia’s dictionary, and the Lantern Moon button. I knit most of it on the ferry departing the retreat. (see at show and tell)
We had very little free time, mostly due to the fact that you would not want to miss the opportunity to spend some time with another attendee, to get to know them and learn from them. On our final night of polishing off (or spilling) half bottles of wine, Cat scooted home quick to pick up the card game Quiddler, which five of us played until nearly midnight. Jared, Cookie, Jeane DeCoster, Amy Houck and I played. Bonus points were given for yarnie words like “diz”, which under normal rules would not even be accepted as a word. I have the score sheet so you can see who won. (Not me.)
Also on the last day, I gave the lodge’s aluminum rowboat its maiden voyage for 2010 so I could take some photos out on the water.
I have a renewed and increased respect for many of these people’s talents and work ethic. Many treats are in the works for all of us.
As the Visionary Retreat ended, we said some goodbyes, but many of us headed south together to the Madrona Fibert Arts Winter Festival in Tacoma, Washington. After one last ferry ride with more Quiddler and knitting, I rode with Sivia and Carson and our baggage in Judy Becker’s talking car. After all those fiber gifts, coupled with the event of Judith opening her trunk for a fiber sale, we had little room for our bodies in the car on the way back. (I bought a skein of bison dyed by Judith- come to show and tell.) From the car we caught a good view of the clouds of migrating trumpeter swans.
Madrona
Madrona is an extraordinary knitting conference that should be on every knitter’s bucket list. Mostly, I could soak it all in and enjoy the market and the many people I met. I even had time to visit the Tacoma Art Museum. I taught just one small mini-class in grafting, and enjoyed it so. My roommate Anne Berk taught classes in argyle-knitting, both flat and in the round. Her book Shibui Argyle will be out soon. Look for it. I got to pet the pretty samples in Shibui’s yarns.
Jane Pauley and a film crew walked by as I was winding a hank. She was there to interview Betsy McCarthy for a AARP series on switching careers later in life. Betsy said once she reminded Jane how to hold the needles, she remembered from her youth and got a skein of Felted Tweed to knit on the way home. See Jane knit.
“Knit-ting stret-ches.” That is just one memorable comment from Mary Scott Huff, who is breathing new life into fair isle knitting. She’s a hoot-and-a-half. If you get a chance to meet her or learn from her, take it.
At 4:00 a.m. Sunday, I met Linda Cortright of Wild Fibers Magazine in the hotel lobby to share a ride to SeaTac for our early flights. She was a guest speaker at the conference who, through her magazine, lecture and slideshow pressed upon all of us the importance of supporting nomads who care for their herds of cashmere goats. As their lifestyle is threatenend, they and we all may have a lot to lose.
Now I am home, and the kids have the day off school. My youngest is learning the piano intro from Billy Preston’s “Nothing from Nothing” because “it’s just so cool”. My middle needs me to cut his hair so he can look respectable for interning tomorrow. My oldest sounds like he could use a care package from home. Snoring dog doesn’t need a thing. Husband has the house clean. But we all need food, so, back to real life pushing a grocery cart. Meijer, see you in a few. Great American Afghan knitters, see you tonight. Yarnies, see you tomorrow. Then, here’s my homework. I may be at about step 6:
-Lorilee