What a great time!

Well, camp has ended and I am heading home! There were so many great people and it was sooo much fun! The Blue Moon Fiber Arts gals are absolutely wonderful and really had such great activities and workshops planned for us!

Here's a bit of a summary:

We had four workshops and were broken into 4 tribes, rotating through the various workshops. I was a Chickabiddie. The other tribes were Rhode Island Reds, Cluckers and...hmmm...I can't remember the 4th right now!

Prior to the start of our workshops, a special Blue Moon shop was set up to provide all our class material needs-you know, just in case we may have forgotten needles or something....Yeah, or SOMETHING! I came fully equipped, but it didn't stop me from purchasing some Seduction, STR and mill ends that were being offered!-YAY! Too tempting! There were also some tres-cool patterns, sheep-to-shoe kits, books, bags, knit pouches, t-shirts, etc...

My tribe attended a Stitch and Gossip with Cookie and Nathania. We worked on a charity blanket by each knitting a square in the round, joining 4 into one large square, then running a circ along each edge of the square so that four of us could knit on the blanket at one time. (THAT'S what one of my earlier pic is showing...). And, of course, we were using heavy wt. STR which was awesome to knit up!

Our next workshop was with Cat Bordhi who had us knit a mini sock, toe-up, using a cute pattern she wrote. She taught us Judy's provisional cast on and introduced us to her left and right increase technique, which will be in her next book. Other than owning Cat's "Socks Soar on Two Needles" and visiting her site and making her cute little sock bookmark, I really didn't know much about Cat other than what other books she had written and that she is the Moebis woman! Little did I know what an entertaining, brilliant woman she is. Truly a gem and she lives in the San Juan Islands, so we even got Cat Comments added to our Whale Watching tour! Too fun!

In the evening, we had campfire! We exchanged handmade chickens and I have to confess that luck and good fortune has been on my side these days, as I scored THE BEST chicken ever! Lisa K. made a Hippy Chicken-I'll post a pic eventually, but boy was it detailed! The chicken looked like it was felted or sewn from felt; then she crocheted a mini-potholder vest for it, put a leather with beads headband on it. It had mini-sunglasses, a cool fimo necklace, sock knitting in it's wing...just FABULOUS! Cat and Yarn Harlot Stephanie did a joint project and did a presentation on the evolution of their chicken and the secret details for making an authentic felted egg-complete with olfactory effects!

The next day was whale watching-we cruised on out into the San Juan Islands and DBF and DS were even allowed to join in! Everyone sat around chatting and knitting. We even had a special "Mystic Sea" pattern that Cass wrote that was our 'official' whale outting pattern! The prescribed yarn we used was med. wt. Lunasea, but, of course, we could have used any colorway!

Another fun evening at "campfire" when storyteller (and good friend of Cat's), Antionette (need to check her last name!) entertained us with two stories. We then headed out to roast marshmellows over an open fire. Yes, folks, a REAL OPEN FIRE! Real flames, I mean...real coals, I mean...real rowdy folk, I mean...

The next day workshops for my tribe started with Tina's workshop where we learned about colors, dying, BMFA colorways, Tina inspiration, and where we got to play with colors using pastels and yarn! I enjoyed this sooo much! So inspiring! Plus, what was fun was seeing so many different colorways and socks and balls of BMFA yarn in a huge pile!

Stephanie's class was a blast! As she stated in class, "Cat is the yin, I am the Yang..." She and Cat are so complimentary to each other in their styles and yet you can agree with both! Stephanie discussed sock construction with the use of very few tools and-get this-no tape measure! Of course, she was thoroughly entertaining in her presentation.

So we then followed classes with a second Olympics event! (Did I already mention that we had had one the day before?--"Underwater Knitting", of which Nathania got the Gold Medal!) This time, it was "Paired Knitting" where a paired team had to knit together, each used only one hand and had to knit as many rows as possible. I had the honor of getting to knit with Cookie, though I think I slowed her down! It was all great fun, though!

And if you think the Yarn Harlot is entertaining, you really ought to experience Cat and her together! There was even a separate competition between the two of them for fastest knitting-Stephanie on DPNs, Cat on 2 Circs! While knitting, they proceeded to place themselves in yoga poses and even posed themselves into a knit stitch! Too hilarious!

Grand finale was our banquet followed by our fashion show and awards presentation! Oh-and each tribe even made up their own camp song, though my tribe fell short in that arena! Everyone elses' songs were clever and adorable, though! What would camp be without awards? No, I didn't get one, (I never do, but I kinda like being somewhat non-descript! That way I freak people out more as they get to know me!-lol!) The benefit is that I got to be a big "L" (for Looser!-NO, they didn't label us that, I did!) which meant we (those who had not gotten an award or prize) got to line up and choose from an assortment of goodies! I am now the proud owner of an Addi lace 47" size 1 circ!-HA! (see? Good fortune shineth upon me!) The fashion show was quite fun, too! There were such wonderful items modeled for us!

Well, I've gone on and on and now will stop! I'll try and add some pics!