A bunch of crafty women gathered at the Westlock Memorial Hall on Saturday to spend a little time away from it all.
Nearly 50 women from communities all over the area descended on Westlock for the Lil Stitchers’ 17th annual retreat on Feb. 8.
Although the retreat is in its 17th year, it’s a relative baby compared to the Lil Stitchers, who had their start in the early 1980s. The small group of friends took their name from the fact they gathered at a cabin on Long Island Lake, said group member Lorraine Allison.
The retreat is an offshoot of the group, welcoming in dozens of people to give them a chance to meet up with friends and spend some time working on crafts like knitting, quilt making and scrap booking.
“You can do whatever craft you want,” Allison said.
However, the most popular craft by far is cross-stitching.
“It’s a good place to learn new things because of the expertise of all the people here,” Allison said.
One example of something new taking place at the retreat was the arm knitting being done by Leona Petherbridge.
Arm knitting is exactly what it sounds like — knitting with your arms taking the place of the needles.
“It’s quicker,” she said. “You have a scarf within half and hour.”
Petherbridge is new to the arm-knitting game, having watched a few tutorials on an iPhone while sitting at the retreat. However, she had already got the hang of it, having make and reworked the same scarf at least twice.
Since the knitter’s arms are the needles, the fingers are freer than they are in conventional knitting. However, Petherbridge said there are no special things the fingers are used for other than ensuring the wool ends up in the right spot before being woven around the arms.
Arm knitting only came into the world about two or three months ago, she said, after someone thought of the idea and decided to tell the rest of the world about it.
Petherbridge has become so enamoured with it, that she’s turned it into a 4-H project with her 4-Hers in Bon Accord this upcoming weekend.
However, she had one word of warning — because it’s attached to you, it’s not something you can easily put down midway through, so make sure you don’t have to suddenly get up to do something.
Jocelyn McKinnon was one of many cross-stitchers at the retreat, working on a scene of several mallards flitting their way through marshland.
“It’s like painting with thread,” she said.
McKinnon explained the amount of detail in a piece of cross stitching depends on the thread count of the base fabric — the higher the thread count, the closer the stitches will be, and more detailed the image will be.
Each stitch is only one colour of thread, so a gradual change from one colour to another requires many different stitches in many different colours.
And no matter how fine the details are, McKinnon said if cross stitchers are able to stitch only about two or three square inches, it’s been a good day.
“It’s a lot of diligent stitching,” she said.
Even though it is can be a long process to complete a piece, she said it’s something that’s still enjoyable enough that it can be done either while watching TV or as an all-day affair.
While the Lil Stitchers’ retreat is an annual affair, the Lil Stitchers themselves try to meet about three times a year as their small group to connect and just enjoy their common interests, Allison said.
