Wonderful weekend

Catherine picked me up on Friday for us to pop out to our little weekend retreat; lucky  there were only the two of us as the car was completely full with all of our stuff!  I took my wheel, more fibre than I needed and some knitting as well.   The usual sleeping bag, pillow and blankets, a heater as there were none in the bunkrooms and we needed it, some wood for the fire as well as paper, kindling etc.

We stopped off in Papanui on the way to drop into Fabric Vision as Catherine needed some supplies for the weekend; she decided to make do with the zip she had shortly after seeing the pricing on the only one that was the correct length; $33!   As it turned out that was a good decision as that zip would have been too long.
I bought nothing, I did offer second opinions on a couple of things though and we found out that they're not reopening their Bath St shop as they believe there isn't sufficient people in town even once it's been reopened.  I'm devastated!  This means the only fabric shop over this side of town that isn't primarily a quilting shop is Spotlight; horrors!  I did suggest they could look at opening over my way as there are lots of us in this area and it's closer for Catherine too.  Lets hope I don't need any more fabric or notions till someone does open over this side of town.

After that we headed off to Rangiora to look at a quilting shop there; it's at 9 High St and is in the same complex as their local Warehouse store.  Can't remember the name of the shop, but I may have bought a book on using jelly rolls there, good price and a good book; I have a jelly roll to use once the current 3 are turned into my king sized quilt and there's some good ideas in this book.   They had lovely fabric too, but I didn't need any then.

Next stop of course was Birch Hill Camp which is a smaller camp run by the Boys Brigade.  3 bunk rooms, a climbing castle and the main hall with kitchen and toilets.   There were about 15 of us and it worked out well, we wouldn't have wanted any more people though, or any less room.   Nice gas showers though.

We all set up and there were a range of crafts practiced.   Many doing sewing of clothing for their children, a couple doing things for themselves including Catherine who did a really good job on a jacket despite instructions that were a little misleading.   Great welt pockets!   Some embroidery by Joanne, beautiful work as usual, Bec dropped in and did some needlefelting between looking after her wee man who's just starting to try and walk, some doing quilting and of course my knitting and spinning.  Joanne and I also helped a learner knitter.  Joanne helped with the knitting and I taught how to sew up the wee baby jacket.  Unfortunately I can't remember the lady's name, but for a first project I was amazed at how good it was; even tension and no dropped stitches!

Here's the main hall, as you can see lots of sewing machines, all going flat tack and lots of talking.  We also had one very well behaved wee girl.  Emily is I think almost 7 and kept herself busy without getting in the way or annoying anyone.  She enjoyed watching the spinning and worked out how the wheel worked really well too without any real help from me; a very intelligent and charming wee lass; a credit to her parents and herself.

Here's Joanne working on her embroidery, it's a birth sampler for her eldest daughter which has been on hold for a wee while due to other commitments (namely her 3 children), she almost finished it; just short a wee bit of thread I think at the end so should be done really soon.   It's a classic sampler, none of the kitsch frollicing animals or anything so the children won't be trying to hide it when their friends come over.

The lovely quilt that Summer was working on, the top is all sewn together, so just got the backing and binding to go; any small boy would love that quilt.

This is not my spinning, Joanne brought her wheel (Fiona) along for Tanya to spin on.  Tanya was flying in so couldn't really bring her wheel.  She spun 100g of Merino from Heavenly Wools in the colourway "Shades of Ink".  It turned out beautifully, like so many other things this weekend.

I was busy spinning too, don't I look the part?

I was spinning up a scrappy yarn, got half of it completed including plying

And the other half is all on the bobbin, just has to be plied

Hopefully I'll get that finished later this week, then washed and I can work out what to make with it.  It's not all one weight as I finished off some lace singles that had been sitting on the bobbin and incorporated them into the yarn.

I also got some more knitting done on my Citron, almost up to the end of the 5th set of repeats; if I was doing a small shawl this is where I'd move onto the ruffle.  I am, however doing a much bigger one so I'll be doing at least 2 more sets of repeats plus ruffle.   Got to the sleeve increases for my top, but needed to evenly increase 17 stitches and I didn't have the right headspace for that, so it went on hold; about to use an app to work that out so I can keep going.  Loving the fabric that is being created though.

This week then I need to:
finish plying
make George's pj's
do more work on the spring garden tee
clean the bathroom and kitchen seeing as T wasn't feeling up to it this weekend.