RiverWools Winter Freeform Retreat Day

Finally, I'm getting around to posting a few pictures and words about the day. This took place on Saturday, Feb. 7. I took a few pictures beforehand, but was too nervous and busy with leading the workshop that I didn't take any during the event.

We had three tables set up for the sixteen adventurous participants, with goodie bags, a folder full of handouts and a special button I made for the day.

This is where I stood to teach. I brought in scrumbles, works-in-progress and some completed items to display.
I presented a Scrumbling 101 lesson, a lesson in the bullion stitch, and to end the day, we switched over to knitting random lace. The participants were primarily knitters and I think they were quite ready to pick up two needles by that time!
Here's Martha, owner of RiverWools, who I thank for believing I really could lead the workshop and giving me this wonderful opportunity. It was a lot of preparation work, but now I have the work done so I can teach future classes in these areas. I'm excited about that, it's a step or two out of my comfort zone and I think it's good for a person to take some of those steps every so often!

I learned a lot from doing this workshop, both during the preparation time and from the day itself. I think everyone had fun and learned some new techniques, or felt inspired. I know that I would do a few things differently and I wish that I had been able to spend more one-on-one time with people, but all-in-all I feel pretty good about how the day went.

In addition to the crochet and knitting, we had Stephanie throughout the day. Stephanie is a massage therapist who set up a chair massage area and brought each person back for a mini-massage. She also focused on the particular physical stresses that handwork can have on our bodies and gave tips on mitigating them. Our favorite:
"Knit for only 20 minutes at a time. Haha." (Yes, she said the Haha.)

"Freeform is a State of Mind" button.
I also made bullion rounds for everyone, so each person could have a sample of each of the two types. What, you didn't know there are two types? I didn't either. Until I started to try to figure out how best to teach the bullion stitch. Then, well, I became a wee bit detail-oriented and obsessive and decided that there are actually four variants. And that will be the subject of another post. Really.

Random Photo No. 2 (From the Mixed Up Files of Ms. Zann C. Carter)

I am not entirely sure, but am pretty sure that this is a photograph of my maternal great grandmother, Ella Harper Harbeson Peaslee, who died in 1905. The question is what is that fuzzy, furry thing on the bench beside her???

The interesting thing is that I was able to make this image from a negative I found in the Family Papers. There are many, many negatives and no prints of them.

I thought I'd have to buy a special scanner, but I didn't. I put the negative on a small light box, which cost me around $15, and photographed it with my digital camera. Here's one of my mother (the little one on the right) and her two sisters, Hootie (Suzanne) and Nell, circa 1925:


In Photoshop, there's this nifty image adjustment called "Invert" et voila!
It is a wonderfully magical process - it's like the negative is a secret that only hints at faces and details, and one magic word - Invert! - reveals them.

I'm looking forward to getting back to work on the Family Papers.
Namaste,
Zann