Sunflower Knitting and Stitching Weekend 2009

The Sunflower Knitting Stitching Immersion is over. It was a great success in my eyes. I was able to merge the students' ideas from the first class in August to improve the experience. And now I have another whole bunch of students' comments to make next years' weekends even better. Here are some scenes of what we did.

We started out the day with a tour of the farm and farmhouse and a slide presentation called "The Joy of Color." After the slide show, I handed everyone some clippers and we all went outside to find a natural object of beauty to translate into a colorway. It was a beautiful day - quite warm and the leaves were just beginning to turn. My garden and the fields around our house have begun turning the lovely autumn shades that I love so much. The students walked around - really looking at the plants that are around our house and trying to find a few they found colorfully stimulating. This was a great success. As the sheep and donkey grazed and the guinea hens raced around after bugs, the knitters clipped away. We came back in on the porch and got to work making several colorways of yarn for future projects inspired by the natural object they found outside. I don't think they would have had quite as much success or fun if they weren't in our farm setting.

Here are just a few of the colorways they came up with......
In the afternoon, after a wonderful lunch prepared by my friends Linda and Alice, we steeked, fringed, and stitched the day away. Here are the little samplers they made.

There was no rest. The Farmer brought his tractor with a haywagon attached to it and we left on a hayride. I supplied everyone with a wooly blanket and we were off. Here's the gang enjoying the view to the south and west from the top of the hill near our house.
On the way back, we stopped to check on the sheep who were grazing a nearby field. The dogs did a little herding demonstration.


We dined on leg of lamb from our Leyden Glen Farm in our painted dining room and spent the evening sharing knitting stories.


Early on Sunday morning, we met at the sunflower field and picked sunflowers for the students to take home. It really is fun to walk through the field of blooming flowers - especially this field which is full of so many different varieties.


Sunday, everyone worked the day away on their Sunflower Pillow Project. They all had learned a lot on Saturday and I know that they left with the skills to finish their project when they return home.

Thank you Nancy, Karen, Bonnie and Faith for making the trip to the farm. We all had a great time sharing our place with all of you.