Last year, I tent camped in Acadia National Park with two fiber buddies, Laila and NH Sara. I "met" Sara through blogging, and physically met up at Fiber Revival in 2009. At Fiber Revival, Sara told me about the Vermont Knitting Retreat.
Sara & I attended that in 2010 where we met Laila. Laila moved to the USA from Sweden at the age of 14. Sara knits & weaves. Laila knits and weaves and now dyes (our dye weekend was at her daughter's place in Vermont).
The three of us met up again in 2011 at the Vermont
Knitting Retreat. Both of those retreats ended with a tour of Gilead Fiber Farm owned by Laila's daughter, Kristen. We then added SPA to our meetups, sharing a room and enjoying each other's company. Then we started adding in weekend get-togethers for events such as NH Sheep & Wool and Green Mountain Fiber Festival in White River Junction, VT or simply gathering at Laila's house for a weekend of being fiber junkies and friends.
Last August we got together and tent camped for a week, using the now-becoming-infamous three room Sam's Club find tent I own. While I'm not certain that Laila and Sara were really hyped about the idea of spending
a week in a tent camping, they were good sports & it all turned out well. We have a fiber-shanty-away-from-home to use for events like the VT dye weekend, and our now annual week of tent camping.
Last year was the first time I attended Fiber College of Maine despite the fact I live only 25 miles away from the campground where it is held. I took two classes from Mary Jane Mucklestone in Fair Isle and Andean colorwork, a class from Josette McWilliams of Enchanted Knoll Farm and a wood carving class where I made myself a wood spirit staff.
Enter this year's plans for our now annual camping trip, and we decided to dovetail our week of camping with Fiber College and pitch the tent at the facility hosting Fiber College, Searsport Shores Ocean Campground. We have a screen room, camp kitchen, LED Coleman quad light, 2 queen sized air mattresses (and the cigarette lighter pump to fill them), two burner camp stove and the tent. While I don't have a rain fly for the screen room, we move indoors to the "living room" of the tent during rainy times and the screen room otherwise.
I'm taking classes in A) Navajo spinning B) Introduction to Japanese patterns C) spinning on a Great Wheel and D) photography for knitters. I believe Sara is making a dragon. Laila is along for the ride (saving pennies for a trip to Australian this winter, with plans to meet David of Southern Cross Fibre. We have Krysta (Banrion on Rav) and "the other Sara" from Maine (knitmainea on Rav) joining us the last weekend, and even Lisa (knitnzu on Rav) for a day.
I'll be moving Gamma (my daughter Kille's youngest brother - the other two are "Alpha" and "Beta") and his girlfriend into their apartment Saturday morning (using the pickup I now own and the new-to-me horse trailer), then they will follow me to camp to help me set it up. Hopefully when Laila and Sara get there, it'll all be up and ready, and there will be an adult beverage and hors d'ouevres waiting...Just saying that horse trailers (power washed out) are fabulous pieces of equipment to have when moving college students in and out of places..
I'll be posting the adventures of the nomadic fiber trio as the week progresses..
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