Knitting With Men

If I'm remembered for nothing else than that I helped to establish the Men's Knitting Retreats, I'll consider that worth having lived for.

Four Days With 45 Guys and Yarn

The registration for the 2013 Men's Spring Knitting Retreat in Upstate New York opened last week, and even though it's only January, and the retreat is in May, I'm already starting to look forward to spending time with an incredible group of guys.

Each year, without fail, around 40 guys show up at Easton Mountain with only two things in common...they are men, and they make things with yarn (knit, crochet, tat, weave, spin...etc.).

But those two things create a bond that is so uniquely special, that when this community gets together, some sort of magic happens.  I'm not sure why.  The group is diverse in many ways.  We have young guys and old guys and middle-age guys.  We have straight guys, gay guys and bi guys and transgendered guys.  We have bears and twinks and boring guys like me that aren't either of those.  We have extroverted, social animals and extremely shy and introverted guys.  We have guys from all over the world.

Each year, I come away from this group of guys a better person than when I first met them.

Ask any of the guys who have been and they'll say something similar about the experience...it's amazing.

This year's Men's Spring Knitting Retreat is being held from Thursday, May 16th through Sunday, May 19th at Easton Mountain Retreat Center.  We're reserving three spots in this year's retreat specifically for new knitters, or guys that want to learn to knit.  We also have scholarships available if you know of someone that you'd like to nominate (even if it's for yourself!).  Nominate someone here.

Latest Update:  Even though we just opened registration a week ago, there are only 12 spots left for this year's retreat in case anyone's interested in attending (one of them is for a newbie knitter).

Current Knitting

After finishing such a large and long project, I needed to start something simple and that I could finish quickly.  The milk solid/bison mix handspun yarn was still hanging in my craft area, so I thought I'd use it to make a quick scarf.

I'm using a simple broken rib stitch that looks the same on both sides, and I'm alternating 6 rows of the bison/milk solid mix with two rows of the milk solid only yarn.  Hopefully I'll have enough of the combined yarns to make a decent length scarf.