sticks and string

Over the weekend, I attended my first weekend knitting retreat with four of my close girlfriends. We sort of dominated. (And we may or may not have offended a table of ladies nearby while making jokes, laughing too loudly and watching viral videos on Sarah's iPad.)

I belong to a group called Des Moines Metro Knitters. And five of the group's members organized a weekend event, called Sticks and String. We had a majorly good time spending all of those uninterrupted hours stitching away on our various unfinished objects. My friends and I are all mommas to kiddos of various ages, so this abundance of girl time was mucho appreciated.

Meet my friends! Above is Amy and Sarah. They are the ones who actually taught me how to knit! Both of them! True story. They are not only awesome friends and moms who I look up to, but they really know their stuff.

The girl on the far right in this pic is Melissa. She's amazing. She makes me laugh until my stomach hurts. She brought the most radical vintage knitting suitcase thing that I've ever seen and has a stash of really fun old knitting needles. Like these blue ones. That I want.
And this would be me and my friend Nichole. We like to call her NicDowell. She is hilarious, adorable, and was in the army. So don't mess with her. We are all sitting at Perkins in these pics, because that is actually where we used to meet up and knit late at night. Cheap coffee, awesome breakfast potatoes, and they never close. Or kick us out for being unruly. (We missed you, Bower!)

My labor of love for the weekend was a super bulky sweater by Twinkle's Wenlan Chia (from the book Weekend Knits.)

 
I have had my eye on this project for almost two years, and I knew I had to make it now. The kelly green colorway of this yarn was discontinued, but I tracked it down and snagged three skeins before it was gone forever. Whew!

Late, late, late into Saturday night, I was kind of suffering through my sweater knitting and pattern deciphering, but I stuck with it. The next morning, we started off the day with a little yarn + yoga (which was amazing!) And then my spirit was renewed and I was able to finish everything off before it was time to go home. Ahhh. So yeah, I knitted an entire sweater during a weekend retreat. Wanna see? I'll post photos soon.