8th Annual Maritime Spinner's Retreat

On the weekend of October 24th, 2008, Tanya, CJ and I headed to the Gaelic College in Cape Breton to attend the 8th Annual Maritime Spinner's Retreat.

Since we were meeting CJ in Truro, and we were a little early for our meeting time, Tanya and I decided to stop by the Masstown Market in Debert. If you have never been to this market, do yourself a favor and stop by. It has stuff for anyone and everyone. It has food, gifts, crafts, wine, baked goods, a garden center. I spent over $75 in Christmas presents that wasn't really even planned for.

After picking up CJ in Truro, we continued on towards Cape Breton. Immediately after crossing the Canso Causeway, we made our second luxury stop of the day. We stopped at the Candy Shop. The spending continued on at this location - including a "to die for" half-and-half hot chocolate coffee bought from the Chocolate Bar.

Our last stop before reaching destination was at a most wonderful yarn shop in Baddeck called Baadeck Yarns. This is where I made one of my most wonderful purchases of the whole weekend. A few years back, on a trip to Halifax, I had purchase the Queen of the Waves pattern by Ilga Leja from the Tangled Skein. At the time, I was planning on using the polwarth I had purchased from London Wul that Tanya had handspun for me. Alas, once it was spun, there was not enough to knit up this pattern. So the pattern went on a shelf waiting for the right yarn to come along. The right yarn spoke to me as soon as I entered Baadeck Yarns. The Yarn is Hand Maiden Casbah (80% Merino, 10% Cashmere, 10% Nylon) by Fleece Artist. The color is the most amazing - inspired by the color of the frozen Bras d'Or Lakes. The color is called First Flight and is to commemorate the 100 anniversary in 2009 of the Flight of the Silver Dart.



Our last stop of the day was our final destination - the Gaelic College. At registration, we were handed a bag (I love the bag itself) that contained all kinds of goodies including: a handmade orifice hook, handmade stitch markers, a Diz and some colorful Shetland/Romney. I learned on Saturday that a Diz is used for creating slivers from combed fleece.



We settled into our dorm style room, where we even created our little pantry/kitchen area:



The retreat had many workshops going on throughout the weekend. I attended some on using hand carders, creating novelty yarns and picking a fleece. Lots of time was also spent spinning in the Great Hall.



One of the highlights of Saturday was watching and listening to the Milling of the Retreat Blanket. The fleece was spun by the spinners New Brunswick Maritime Spinner's Retreat of two years ago. The cloth was woven by the spinner's from the PEI retreat of last year. And finally, the cloth was milled by the spinners of the Nova Scotia Cape Breton Spinner's Retreat



And a retreat would not be complete without the few forages to the Spinners Market where the vendors allow us to indulge our every whim. I continued on my spending spree and purchased:


a new hand made spindle by Pia Skaarer Nielsen;


some Shetland Fleece (in natural color so that I can attempt my hand at dyeing);



some unwashed raw Romney/Lincoln Fiber from Delia Burge of Cobweb Woolies;



and another find that made me jump for joy. Back on the trip to Halifax where I had purchased the Queen of the Waves pattern, I had fallen in love with the Blue Sky Alpaca Silk Shrug pattern. But when I calculated how much it would cost for the yarn to make this pattern, I left the pattern and yarn behind and determined that I would probably never make this pattern. Little did I know that I would find the exact yarn required for this pattern in one of my favorite colors at the retreat. So my last purchase is the following Blue Sky Alpaca/Silk blend. Sunrise Mercantile, from whom I purchased the yarn, did not have enough of the yarn available at the retreat. However, Suzy Belt of Sunrise Mercantile was kind enough to mail me the additional required skeins and the pattern. I received all of this late last week.

Well, this was yet another wonderful retreat. I am really looking forward to the one next year being held in the Fredericton, New Brunswick area.