It’s not often that I get the opportunity to sit and knit with other men, and I’ve never had the opportunity to devote three days in the mountains of upstate New York specifically to knitting. Now I get the chance to do both at once.

You can’t imagine how excited I am about this opportunity.

Men’s Spring Knitting Retreat
Ted and I have been trying to hatch the idea of bringing together a group of knitting men in a retreat-like setting for a while now, and we’ve come up with the first annual Men’s Spring Knitting Retreat (MSKR).

Picture this, if you will. An all-male retreat center, set on 175 beautiful acres in Upstate New York. Then picture the deck around the main house peppered with men working on their current knitting project, or treadling on a spinning wheel, or mentoring a newer knitter in an age-old technique.

Now you know why I’m so excited (or now I’ve confirmed what a geek I am!).

For any guys who are interested in participating in this first-of-its-kind event, please read all the necessary information on the MSKR Website.

Some of the information that’s not included on the official web site which you might want to know:

1. The first year will be a very casually pulled together with no formal schedule of workshops or events. Just a bunch of guys getting together in one amazing place. If enough folks sign up early enough, we will try to put together an actual schedule of events.

2. The retreat center at Easton Mountain provides lodging and meals for anyone making reservations for the retreat weekend (at their standard room rates – room and meals will be approximately $95 per night). In addition, if we want to have a dedicated meeting space to organize workshops, we will have to get a minimum of fifteen participants signed up as quickly as possible…so if you know you’d like to attend, please book your reservation as soon as possible. If we don’t get 15 or more, the event will still take place and we’ll just gather informally in common areas.

3. Please let any of your guy-friends who might be interested know about the event. The MSKR web site has links to two PDF files to print off color or black and white fliers that could be posted in your local yarn store or knitting venue.

Feel free to send any questions about the event to me, and I’ll be glad to reply.

Current Knitting
As I wrote on Monday, I’m devoting this week to the Alpaca Herd Jacket only.

It’s difficult to see in the picture (this yarn is great, but very difficult to photograph), but I’ve knit up to the sleeve shaping on the right/front of the jacket. I should go much more quickly and finish the front this week.

Current Spinning
I’ve been focusing on two spinning projects.

The first is from the red roving that James gifted me with on his recent visit here.

Yes, I spun up the entire ball of roving, and ended up with this lovely hank of DK weight yarn. The yarn feels a lot like Shetland, but I don’t know the exact breed. I will probably end up mixing this yarn with some other yarn to make socks.

I’ve also been working on the long-forgotten Corriedale.

I have pounds and pounds of this stuff (or so it seems), and now I have another bobbin of singles, in addition to the first two hanks I’ve completed.

Adam Spector Hodgkins Memorial Fund