Knit Retreat, Maine

Did you go to summer camp?  Maybe it was so rich and  satisfying that  you lingered over the memory months after school started in September.

In 1938, five years old, I went to Three Arrows, an overnight camp in Pennsylvania.  "Oh, that's awfully young," people have said, "Your family must have been rich!"  No, we were very poor, lived in a coldwater flat, walkup, fifth floor, in Greenwich Village.  I have no idea how they paid for it; It was run by leftist friends of my parents.  It was not unusual for New York City parents to send children "to the country" in the summer for a healthier environment.  Many charitable organizations began camps in the 19th century for the "worthy poor."  Some continue, one of the largest is The Fresh Air Fund run by the New York Times.  An only child with contentious parents, I always loved being away. 

But I digress.  Since our return from Knitting Retreat at Medomak Camp in Maine, I have malingered. It is time for a final blog about camp itself, largely to share with the other "campers."  I've also, true confession, been avoiding my "writing outside the blog." Deadlines loom.

We had only a vague idea of what was ahead.  Our car was stuffed with bedding, wool roving, UFOs (yarnspeak for unfinished knitting projects), Ron's spinning wheel.  We dropped these off in our cozy cabin--with a kitchen we'd never use, because the three daily meals were excellent and plentiful.  Wrote our names on pieces of wood, put them around our necks.  Felt like camp.  The first night was an exchange about our personal knit history, yarn expectations for the week. 

Unlike camp, our instructors had no agendas about levels of skill to be achieved, badges earned. They suggested ideas, asked what each wanted to work on--socks, hats, Fair Isle design.   Both were skilled colorists--and very different from one another. Geri Valentine, on the left in picture , shears sheep, spins and dyes their wool, then knits glorious jackets, coats, mittens to sell at fairs.  You must click on these photos to get an idea of them! With her is Mary Ann, big fan of Garrison Keilor, a knitter and hiker.  We listened closely for her soft-voice, wry amused wry comments-- getting caught in a downpour, her early morning kayak adventure. 

Bill Huntington, our other instructor, uses a more muted color palette and focused on hats.  Ron had a breakthrough experience with the one he made and has been showing it to everyone in NYC since our return.  It is lovely, with most of the yarn from his early spinning. View is from the top, design is Bill's, "Button Hat."  The pattern, yarn samples, even kits, can be ordered from Hope Spinnery, his wind-powered fiber mill.  One field trip to the mill was the closest I'd ever been to this technology.  It's 80 feet tall, sits between the spinnery and Bill's house. The windmill provides 60 per cent of his power needs.  When he's not using it, that power goes into the grid, provides credits for his future use.    

We were an intergenerational group--Ron and I at the elder end, Caitlin, 13, at the other.  Frankie, her mother, knit with us while Caitlin stayed at Medomak's family camp.  She joined us for another field trip to Nanny Kennedy's sheep farm, source of Seacolors Yarn, hand-dyed in a solar process. Nanny grows indigo.  We picked indigo leaves, then watched Geri and Nanny in the fast-paced process where the dye gets poured back and forth, one container to another, as the air changes its color.  Ron had spun Leah's gift of white roving from the Athens Country Fair.  We dropped it into the dyepost for our totally Maine product.

Back at the Retreat, many "Ahas!" Frankie, mother of Caitlin, unraveled stitches--on purpose--to create a ladder effect in a shawl. Tina, skillful drop spindler and wheel spinner, hoped to become a knitter.   By Day Four she'd connected with needles, modelled her completed hat from Bill's pattern. Bonnie was deep into the most complicated intarsia color work-- 300 stitches.   I suppose a woman who has operated a huge Zamboni machine can take on all kinds of challenges. 

Gregory was another camper who impressed our group with her range of skills.  A librarian she, of course, knew many things about many things. But her two, not one, but two 19th century circular sock knitting machines were over the top.   In this photo, her foot wears a beautiful sock produced by the machine as an in-process sock emerges.  Because I did not get a good photo of this wonder, click here to enter this special world.

To others in our congenial group not pictured here--Betty and her daughter, Mary Ann, Joann--my only defense is that I tried.  Even Bill was in fewer of my photos than I expected!

Comments

[SAZ aka Susan]

Wow - This is some kind of Summer Camp! So neat to see all the stages of yarn before it gets to the needles and the people sound wonderful. My kind of people.

[Bethene LeMahieu]

Along with the other re-inventions of this age/stage of our lives comes the re-invention of camp. From lanyards woven out of plastic (what I remember of camp crafts) to what you created...is a distance of lightyears. I love it! The cross-generational aspect of your camp experience appeals to me, too. Obviously, you had a grand time!