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Here's a brief account about our first annual Ghost Ranch Knitting Retreat which happened from Sunday, February 25 - Saturday, March 3, 2001.

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Fifteen of us  Minnesota knitters went to Ghost Ranch, in Abiquiu, New Mexico for seven days at the end of February.  It was great!  Ghost Ranch is a Presbyterian-owned retreat center and former home of Georgia O'Keeffe.  People slept in accomodations of their choice.  We ate our meals in the old comfortable dining hall cafeteria style.  Then we'd walk about 2 long city blocks distance up a dirt road along side a pasture for horses, to the new Art Center.  Looking back down hill there was always a great view of the distant mesas and mountains and low clouds and mist - always interesting - no matter if it just rained or snowed or was cloudy or sunny.  And we had every kind of weather.

The Art Center building is adobe and spacious and beautiful.  We knitted inside or outside on the patio/amphitheater.  In the evening we knitted in the old Library lounge and several times, watched videos about Georgia O'Keeffe or Tierra Wools (a place we visited that has resurrected the breeding of the Navajo churro sheep and the spinning and weaving of churro wool.)

A week was really a good length of time for our retreat. Besides knitting as much as we wanted, people did trips to Taos and Santa Fe - each about an hour and fifteen minutes away - and to Ojo Caliente (hot springs) 40 minutes away, and Tierra Wools (30 miles away) where you can buy their natural dyed yarn and see the looms and see rooms of handwoven rugs that are for sale.

Back at Ghost Ranch there is a large textile museum, an anthropology museum, and a little bookstore stuffed with books and art and crafts and flashlights and sun block.

Several people came for half a week.  I think thatTime magically slows down when you get there so it was worth the trip for them too.  One special synchronistic happening was that we ran into Lizbeth Upitis (Minnesota master knitter and author of The Latvian Mitten Book) in Santa Fe, about to do a Latvian Mitten workshop at the Needle's Eye Yarn shop, and she joined us up at Ghost Ranch for most of the week and knitted and told stories along with the rest of us.  It was a treat to have her company.  She said she currently  has "three passions - textiles, meditation, and tai chi."  She was at the beginning of a trip around the world doing tai chi with her teacher and traveling again to Latvia with American knitters.

People all brought their own knitting projects, and I brought some shop yarn to share for knitters who wanted to learn a new technique while making a bag.  Some of these techniques are past retreat projects, some were new - for example, a linen bag which was partially woven and partially knitted.  So there was the opportunity to do as much serious knitting and learning as a person wanted.

My heartfelt thanks to my brave companions on this first adventure to New Mexico - Bev, Meg, Peg, Kay, Mimi, Judy and Al, Chris and Connie, Pat and Judy, Joan and Nancy, and Helen.  Bev and I (who share a birthday) thank you all for the sweet surprise birthday party and gifts (the perfect pin for Bev, and the bouquet of wild, dry New Mexico weeds and grasses from Nancy, a genuine pair of Latvian mittens knit in Latvia, and that Negra Modelo!)  Thanks to Lizbeth wherever she is!  And mucho thanks to Anna Randall (who now lives in Santa Fe) for her good heart and hospitality and helpfulness to me those four days before the retreat!

There will be more Lost in the Woods at Ghost Ranch Retreats - come visit the Ghost Ranch Retreat page for all the details, then sign up and come see Ghost Ranch for yourself.  We're looking forward to having you join us, and we know you'll love it there.

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