Knitting Camp Fun

Despite a rainy start to the week, the kids attending our knitting camp had a fun morning yesterday dying yarn.Today's weather was a little better, and so rinsing their dyed yarns and wet felting were lots of fun.They're all knitting little sweaters this week - learning how to follow and interpret a pattern, how to increase and decrease, and how to seam.

Be sure to check out our fun videos of knitting camp on You Tube or on our Facebook page.

I love knitting camp!

I had the pleasure of being a part of knitting camp here at the shop TWICE this summer and I loved every minute of it. When you are an instructor, you really have a chance to learn right along with everyone else because each new skill for someone else is explained in detail - sometimes in ways that you haven't thought of before. Besides any knitter can benefit from going back to some of the basics and practicing them BEFORE working a new project.

Our second camp session ended on Friday of last week and two of our campers came back into the shop on Saturday to pick up supplies for new projects! It was such a pleasure visiting with them. These young knitters were so excited to work on new projects that I guess they just couldn't face the idea of no camp session on Saturday. (It is a bit much to ask everyone to go cold turkey from knitting camp!) Knitting Camp was a great experience for everyone involved and there were many people who helped get our first knitting camps planned and implemented. Thanks to everyone who assisted and most of all thanks to the young knitters who attended and made it all great fun. From fiber exploration to knitting, and felting to dying yarn,
we really covered a lot with these kids!

We hope to see everyone again in the future - we're already thinking about Knitting Camp level II for next summer, and possibly Knitting Camp for adults due to the excitement our Knitting Camp for young people caused. Guess I better start working on new and more difficult Knitting Jeapardy questions!

Kids Camp - Day Three

Today was so cool! The kids arrived to see their jars of yarn patiently waiting back by the tent. They did some inside knitting, and then went outside to rinse their yarn.
You should have heard the "oooohs" and "aaaahs". They were all so excited to see the beautiful colors they had made. They gently squeezed out the water from their skeinsand hung them up to dry. Then, after a quick snack they started felting. Some of them chose to make felted soaps and others made flowers. What a great activity for a sunny day. An activity where you get all wet, but in the end, you're clean! We had some scented soaps and boy did it smell good out there!
Halfway through the activity, I was up in the shipping room and heard lots of laughing and singing. The girls were singing Mary Had a Little Lamb, but changing the words to show what they'd learned this week:
Mary had an angora rabbit who gave angora yarn...
Mary had an angora coat who gave us some cashmere
Mary had a little silkworm who gave us a mile of silk!

They were certainly a jovial bunch! And all the while they rubbed and scrubbed and felted their soaps and flowers, lots of customers came in to the shop and commented on how much fun the group of kids was having out back. That's what it's all about, isn't it?
Here are a few more shots of the soap felting!