I look forward to seeing you in the shop and around the table. You are always welcome here ~Ellen
We had an awesome retreat in Staunton. What a great town! Beautiful hotel, lovely little shops along the downtown streets, and plenty of wonderful restaurants nestled in the foothills of Virginia's Allegheny mountains make it worth the three-hour drive. A friend I haven't seen in more than 15 years lives in Staunton, so we caught up over lunch in a bakery so decadent I visited it every single day we were there. On top of all that, I had the pleasure of spending an entire weekend with 22 fantastic women and 2 amazing men who all love knitting (or a knitter).
The centerpiece of this particular retreat was a visit to Francis Chester's Cestari Farms, a small operation that produces lovely yarns of wool, cotton, and linen yarns for hand-knitting and weaving. This is a labor of love, and it shows. Francis' face lights up when talks about his sheep, his yarns, and the struggles his
Last month I had the pleasire of visiting Glenstone, an unusual contemporary art museum. The buildings themselves are stark and modern with huge glass panels that remove the distinction between indoors and out. Multiple galleries showcase a stunning collection of works that represent significant transitional shifts in modern art. There are those with whom I was familiar, like Alex Calder, Jackson Pollock, and Andy Warhol, but I am not well-versed in modern art, so most were new to me. I was particularly drawn to these lovely objects by Ruth Asawa in the photo
Melissa, one of my favorite people, was in the shop on Saturday. She brought with her batch of the most amazing chocolate chip cookies ever-in-the-history-of-the-universe, fresh from the oven. Still warm. But I digress. Anyhow, something came up about German, and she said that after washing out of Chemical Engineering in college, she had majored in German. I too, had washed out of chemical engineering in college and majored in English. In all
I had a rough start with my Koto. I consider myself a good knitter, but this pattern is challenging me. Nothing in it is too hard. Not a complicated stitch pattern. Shadow wrap short rows, which I know how to do. The problem was in my understanding. This is a very talented designer with a focus on details that make for a clean, professional-looking garment. But for some reason the way she explained things, and the way I understood things did not match up. It wasn't until nearly a skein and a
