Teaching at SSK 2017 was so much fun! Leslie and Laura (and Sara and Gwen) put on a great retreat.

I had superb students that were game for anything. Look at them draped in wool when it's 100 degrees outside and we had wobbly air conditioning in our classroom! They even took their free time to knit swatches of our class spun yarns.

One of the great things that Laura and Leslie do is to have many, many things available to try. One night it's knitted things, one room of sweaters, one room of accessories - all to try on and fondle.

One night it's tools - two rooms full of knitting needles, fiber processing tools and other goodies and a ginormous circle of spinning wheels to try. I helped sell a couple of wheels that night.

We were in Nashville and we ate well! Our dining hall looked like the Hogwarts great hall and it had a soft serve ice cream machine. I ate barbecue with Ross Farms and wish I had ordered the same sandwich as Lee Meredith (mac and cheese with pimento cheese) at a grilled cheese restaurant. I drank a lot of sweet tea.

And of course my loot! This is a decidedly unsexy picture of my haul from the mighty SSK marketplace, but I will talk about most of it separately in other blog posts.

Ready? Clockwise from top left: Hipstrings Corriedale top, Two bags from the Fat Squirrel (I could have bought them all), battlings and top from Hobbeldehoy, my SSK goodie bag, Hipstrings WPI and twist angle tools, two bags of dyed locks from Hopkins Fiber Studio, two Akerworks bobbins for my Hansen, a Wonder Woman bag from Whimzee Stitches (this has already been stolen by my daughter), and this year's tour shirt from Ross Farm. Not shown a Turkish spindle from Jeri Brock and some yummy smellies from Tuft Woolens.

I wrote about the Hobbeldehoy battlings and Jeri Brock's Flying Pig spindle on the the KnittyBlog yesterday.

SSK is one of those rare retreats where everyone helps each other, questions just get thrown out and everyone contributes an answer or demonstration without bickering and everyone laughs. There were so many jokes and songs and so much laughing. I hope I get to go back!