A Retreat To Joy

Forty-Four men gathered again at Easton Mountain in Greenwich, NY for four days this past weekend and left with a feeling of community, love and joy.

The Perfect Ingredients

Take away any one of the wide and varied components of the Men's Spring Knitting Retreat, and it would be a less amazing event.

Primarily, the men who attend make it amazing.  They are some of the most supportive, loving and generous men I know.  And although we're all exceptionally different in many ways, we all want only to revel in the passion of fiber pursuits and even more so, the community of guys who is there.  One of the biggest, most intimate groups I've ever been a part of.

Easton Mountain is a beautifully serene place and along with the staff and volunteers, an incredible space and tone is created which fosters the magic each year.

Generous fiber vendors make us feel incredibly grateful by supporting us with donations of their work.  I'd like to publicly thank the generous folks who contribute to our success (please feel free to patronize their businesses, because they are AWESOME!):

o Koigu

o Black Bunny Fibers

o Puff The Magic Rabbit

o Fiber Curio and Sundries

o Two Tigers Creations

o Stash Tags

Finally, the folks who help pull this event together. In addition to the work I do to prepare for the retreat and the facilitation whilst there, there are many who contribute through promoting the retreat, nominating scholarship guys, judging scholarship nominations, preparing and leading workshops, arranging road trips, and on and on and on...they truly set the scene for a great event.

There may just be some other component...the god-particle if you will...that sparks life into these awesome men and makes it magical each and every year.

Retreat Photos

I'll start with a few photos of the venue and some of the guys knitting or other things.

Back home at Easton Mountain

The main lodge with the infamous porch to your left.

Guys knitting and drying dyed yarn on the porch

What happens inside the big room

More porch knitting

The view of the main room from the porch

The view looking out from the porch

Jeff giving me the "enough with the porch" look

Ray bringing in some alpaca/romney roving to sell (gorgeous!)

Some of the MSKR 2013 in-room Twats

A great way to start the knitting day - salute to the sun (or at least a lace sun substitute)