Fargo

Hey Blog Buddies,

First of all, thanks so much for all your kind comments on my last post.  I enjoyed reading every one of them!

As most regular readers of this blog know, I attended the annual Nordic Needle stitching retreat last week with my partner in crime, Joyce.  The weather was much better than last year (a high of 78F on the trip up there!), and they had the same great variety of classes and extracurricular activities that we all have come to expect.

We took two classes.  The first was needle painting and we stitched Trish Burr's Little Bee Eater:

 

We needed a whole bunch of colors for that cute little bird!

Each person taking the class received

a blue-green "nest" (in the upper middle of the above photo)

 which was needle felted by our teacher,

to be used for our orts. 

This is my progress so far.

His claws consist of three bullion knots.

Joyce has already finished her knots

but unfortunately I didn't get a photo.

Doing the long-and-short stitch is a lot more fun that I remembered.

Our other class was a little canvaswork box.

 Each side of the box has a Jean Hilton-esque motif.

The background "icing" is done with Arctic Rays

which goes along with the theme of the retreat: "Oh So Sweet."

Here is where I'm at.

The cupcake needle minder was a gift from our teacher.

Of course there was lots of food,

a bookmark exchange,

a tea towel exchange,

a stash exchange and 

a Christmas ornament exchange.

Despite my best intentions,

I did not get around to making anything

for any of the exchanges.

I did get photos of a couple of tea towels...

Almost every one was stitched in a different technique.

One night there was a a little demo on decorating fabric

with Sharpie markers and alcohol (!)

and everyone had a chance to purchase

an inexpensive scarf and create their own art...

We had a free day, so we took a little trip

to Dakota Fiber Mills, just south of Fargo, to see

Chris and her menagerie of animals.

This is Bert, one of two yaks living there.

 She has quite a few alpaca.

They are just the cutest critters!

She even has a camel (Abraham).

Chris was a bit upset with Abraham

because he had just gone for a roll in the mud

and of course his fur (hair?) would somehow have to be cleaned!

Her dog is in the lower right corner of the photo.

She has sheep and goats, too! 

She hires someone to shear the sheep

(Abraham's hair is combed, not shorn).

Then she spins the fur and hair into roving...

...and skeins of yarn...

I purchased a big skein of sock yarn...

It's 70% alpaca, 20% wool and 10% mohair.

This should motivate me to sign up for that sock class

that I've been thinking about for the past year!

No retreat report would be complete without

photos of new stash. 

Here are some of the freebies given away at the retreat...

And here is what I purchased at "The Shop."

I didn't go crazy--you see there's only one new chart.

The portable magnifier/light works well--

I've already used it!

All too soon, it was time for us to head home.

It's always nice to be missed!

Hope you enjoyed the Retreat.

Thanks for visiting!