On June 19, 20 and 21 I spent my days at Rocking Horse Farm near St. Cloud, MN. I attending Knitting Machine Camp! There was actually the space for those who wanted to to camp on the grounds. But I’m close enough that I was able to drive home each night. It is a beautiful farm, no longer in production, but with old buildings in various states of restoration. Carole Wurst and her family have a wonderful studio/store/classroom there, which is where the camp was held.
For the three days, I tried to absorb as much as I could from Carole and the other ‘campers’. Tips and ideas and so much knowledge was in the air those days, if I retained even a small percentage, I should be able to create some wonderful new alpaca items.
The first day I made this shawl using a tuck stitch. The yarn is from a garage sale - cotton and acrylic - and the shawl is destined for donation to a church fund-raiser.

The machine does most of the work on this. It is all in the set-up. The detail is wonderful. I can’t wait to try this in my alpaca yarn.

The second day, I worked on a hooded baby sweater. The knitting is done. I need to sew up the sleeves, finish the hood edge, add a zipper and weave in all the yarn ends.

This is knit with garage sale acrylic yarn and is destined for a fund-raiser or the local food and clothing shelf. I use acrylic yarn as my ‘practise’ yarn to learn the ropes before I try to knit with alpaca yarn.
On the third day, I started a baby bunting. It is very cute, but not very far along!
But Life happened after my camp days, and I’ve not even got my machine unpacked since. But I’ve been busily working on tying up loose ends in the rest of my life, so I can dedicate some serious time to imprinting my brain with knitting machine techniques.
Another great thing took place that I forgot to mention in a timely fashion. The first meeting of a new spinning/knitting/weaving guild happened in Elk River. We don’t have a name yet, but have set our meeting day as the second Tuesday of each month, from 6 - 9 PM, at the activity room of the senior apartment building - Guardian Angels. We had 10 gals attend and 2 more interested. It looks like it will be a fun and informative group.