Happy Birthday to Yak and Yarn

My crafting group Yak and Yarn is one year old this month. And we are going to eat cake and celebrate!

We meet at a local café twice a month (one day time and one evening meeting to cater for all). We have three core members. I am know as The Fearless Leader which makes me smile because if you know me I'm very relaxed. I set the dates and let people know via our Facebook group and email list. I also research pattern ideas for our group projects.

Audrey is our Head of Charity. I started the group just as a meet up with no particular mission other than fellowship for yarn lovers. Then Audrey was asked for blankets for a local charity and so our joint projects began. After the blankets came the scarfs for the homeless and then baby blankets for a third local charity. Making things together has really brought us closer as a group and given us a sense of purpose. But there is no judgment if someone is working on their personal project instead.

Roxanne is our Head of Recruitment. She has been doing an awesome job asking her friends and neighbors to join us and even teaching her friends so that they can take part too.

As for the other members we have a real mix of nationalities: American, Kiwi, English, Scottish, Indian, Russian, Italian, Canadian.... apologies if I've missed any of you. Houston is a very culturally rich place. Our youngest member is 12, a daughter of a member, and our oldest is in her 80s, the mother of a member in Indiana (satellite members are welcome to join). People come and go and that is fine by us. Life is busy and priorities change. But I feel confident our group will continue ... 

PS The pattern for this adorable slice of birthday cake by crochet designer Donna Childs came from the most recent 10th Birthday Collector's Edition of Interweave Crochet.  The yarn store where I work has just starting stocking this magazine. I am SOO happy. It's just marvelous!

Blissful Craft Retreat

Last month I attended the annual craft retreat at the Cenacle House in Houston. What bliss!

Until last year, I had never attended a religious (or otherwise) retreat of any type. However, the idea of a whole day of crafting contemplatively won me over. The Religious of the Cenacle (Cenacle Sisters) are members of an international Catholic women’s congregation founded in France in 1826. In the midst of a praying Christian community, people of all faiths are invited to an awakening and deepening of their experience of a loving and compassionate God.

We spent the day crafting while talking about our personal experiences of craft, listening to craft-related prayers and contemplative passages.  This was my second time at this annual crafters day of prayer.

A beautiful part of one of the contemplations stayed with me. It's taken from "Frayed Faith Stretched to the Breaking Point" by Donna M Williams.

"....It is in the fraying that bits of ourselves, wisps of our experiences are worn off and carried where we know not.
It is in the fraying that bits of other women, wisps of their experiences are worn off and catch on the threads of our lives.
What poverty! What richness!
To allow ourselves to be unraveled and exposed to unknown possibilities;
To allow the fuzz of another to attach itself to the weaving material of our lives....."

Last year's retreat gave me the inspiration to start our Yak and Yarn group. I enjoyed the fellowship of the other crafters so much that I couldn't wait a whole year for the next Cenacle craft retreat. It was fantastic telling the retreat leader, Sister Roselle Haas aka the knitting nun, how her retreat the year before had inspired us to set up our own group to continue our crafty fellowship regularly.

I just found a resource listing several craft retreats on Knitters Review 2016 Knitting and Fiber Events. Perhaps you will find something on there that will appeal!!!

I'd love to know if you've attended a craft retreat before and what kind of experience you had. Just share it in the comments below!