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Here is some more info about our Ghost Ranch Knitting Retreat which is
scheduled for March 6 - 12, 2006.

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Return to the main Ghost Ranch Retreat page.  

Our 2006 retreat will be our 6th year knitting at Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico, and I feel inspired to offer some encouraging words to those of you who are thinking about coming. We still have room for a few more. Join us!

It is always such an adventure - knitting, exploring Ghost Ranch - the hiking trails and the museums, walking under the blue blue New Mexico sky in 50 to 60 degree temperatures (although last year we were surprised by New Mexico's biggest snow storm in 26 years!). The week is always a pleasant mix of knitting and traveling to destinations of interest to fiber people. You can be at any level of knitting - even bring a non knitting friend for company. This year we already have three husbands coming.

Most people fly into Albuquerque and rent a car. Some people will be looking for someone to share rental with. It takes about an hour and 10 minutes to drive to Santa Fe and another hour and a half to drive up Hwy 84 into the high desert to Ghost Ranch - the red hill countryside that Georgia O'Keeffe made famous in her paintings.

The retreat begins Monday the 6th with supper in the Ghost Ranch dining hall. Supper is served cafeteria style between 5:30 and 6:15. When you arrive, check in at the office to get a map of Ghost Ranch and directions to your room. If you arrive after 5:00, it will be posted outside the office door. Following supper we will meet in the small living room in Cedar cabin about 7:00 for introductions and hellos.

Tuesday morning after breakfast, we'll walk up the hill to the new adobe Art Building for knitting. On the way up, turn around and look back to see the ever changing light and clouds and the mountain called Pedernal (Georgia said that God told her if she painted Pedernal enough times, he would give it to her.) On this morning walk you'll also see the Zen garden and the Labyrinth, and hear the wind, the wind chimes and the rippling of the tiny creek below.

In the mornings we knit up in the Art Building - except for the days we travel to yarn shops, galleries and museums etc. in Santa Fe, Taos, Tierra Amarilla, and possibly somewhere new. And then you can fill in the spaces during the week with your own outings and plans. Some people gather again to knit in the evening. Ghost Ranch is at a high altitude so you actually need to be mindful of taking it easy for the first few days - you might want to take a nap Tuesday afternoon. On the full days of the retreat, I'm up in the Art Building knitting - mornings and afternoons - because I love to be up there knitting. You can focus on knitting as much as you like.

Knitting Projects At Ghost Ranch

1. The Ghost Ranch Collection including the Cottonwood Tree Bag and the Twining Vine Bag.
2. Playful Little Horses with playful Anna Shallman.
3. The 5 Circle Table Runner in Shadow Knitting.
4. Crocheting with Kari Wenger.

More details about the above projects

1. For new people, I'll introduce you to our collection of Ghost Ranch knitting patterns, some of which are based on Georgia O'Keeffe's color palette and southwest pictographs. We've had a lot of fun with this theme and have knitted some great bags or pillow covers with birds, stars, suns, moons, corn, flowers, etc. Martha Baker is coming as a participant this year. Her first love is knitting in the Kaffee Fassett technique - using a picture postcard or photo for color ideas, then knitting those colors into a pattern (like our pictograph idea). She presented a bag and hat project at our past fall retreat. Martha has already decided that she wants to work from an O'Keeffe painting and said she's going to choose one ahead of time and will be knitting from her stash yarn, and would be happy if someone wants to look over her shoulder at the retreat to pick up a few tips. It will be something like watching an artist in residence working.

Another of my favorite Ghost Ranch projects is the Twining Vine bag. It's big and round and sits on a wide flat bottom about ten inches in diameter. It's wide and open at the top and can hold skeins of yarn, or a big knitting project, things for the sauna, or things for the baby. It's knit in heavy worsted weight hemp, jute, & wool. It starts at the bottom and increases. Putting your attention on this circular bottom puts you in the mood of roundness and expansion and gives you all kinds of ideas about what it could be used for. It's psychological. The twining vine motif is a pictograph from New Mexico and the Southwest. These little drawings of the vines of the squash plant or the water gourd plant signify prayers for water. It feels meaningful to be knitting this bag in New Mexico where there has been such a long drought and such a great need for water. Many retreat knitters have chosen to do this project and produced wonderful variations. This year I'm bringing a few kits for this bag, and including a new chunky linen yarn for the twining vine.

Another good project is the Cottonwood Tree bag. Actually it should be called the Ghost Ranch Cottonwood tree bag because it was inspired by a somewhat pruned cottonwood tree that lives near the Library - not the wilder versions growing everywhere in New Mexico. I love this bag because the trees are knit in a completely natural dyed handspun wool yarn called Forever Random from Louisa Gelenter's shop in Taos - La Lana Wools. Louisa and her crew go out in the hills near Taos in the spring and summer and fall to harvest natural dye plants to color the unspun wool which is then carded into wonderful subtle combinations of color and handspun by the hands of real people. I love that connection - dye colors from the earth becoming the trees in my bag. I'd like to see this bag transform through the years - the trees grow more wild, the colors transform, deepen or brighten, reflect the earth or the sky or water...

You can take this collection of Ghost Ranch patterns home and/or work with one at the retreat. Idella Moberg has become our retreat photographer and is producing classy color photos to go with our patterns.

2. This year - a treat - my friend and partner in knitting retreats, Anna Shallman, is coming to Ghost Ranch. Anna inspires playfulness and recently she inspired some horse knitting in our Wednesday Night Knitting Group. She and Sue Replogle each knit one of our little (5"-6") horses - Anna's was all dark rich brown baby alpaca and Sue's was gray and wooly and decorated with eyelash mane and tail, and miniature leather ties plus a saddle studded with jewels - something to behold! Horses make me also think of knitting mini horse blankets, and learning about braiding and twisted fringe etc. Or a larger blanket that folds into a carrier for the horse or a tent-like covering over a tiny frame of cottonwood twigs that shelters the pony from the New Mexico sun. We could have a horse show at the end of the week! New Mexico ponies, of course! Especially fun for new knitters!

3. Also every year a new knitting project or technique is offered. Last year we did some Shadow Knitting, and I will be bringing some samples and patterns along again just for show and tell if nothing else. Three of us from my shop designed and knit The 5 Circle Runner and I'll bring kits for this very successful project. I'm also working on a new shadow knit runner called The Shapes of the Moon.

4. Crocheter Kari Wenger of Ely is driving down from her folk's ranch in Colorado to join us for the week at Ghost Ranch. We've been displaying her scarves and little bags in the shop. She will be available to help anyone who wants to learn crochet techniques useful to knitters (like edgings around hats) or you can learn some crochet basics while making a simple bag or granny square, etc. I really love her colors and her little bags which actually look woven. She's also interested in learning to knit while she's with us.

I'll be bringing yarns for the projects mentioned - some in kit form. But if you prefer to knit from your stash, do it. Bring your needles. Bring show and tell. Bring interesting things to read aloud. Bring mindless knitting for the car or evenings. Optional - bring a door prize if you feel so inclined.

Please call Susan at the shop, 218-365-6613 (Noon til 5:00 PM) or at home, 218-365-4078 (until 11:00 AM) if you'd like more information. There are some very nice ladies looking for room mates.

Adios for now. Susan Saari

Return to the main Ghost Ranch Retreat page.

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