I’ve been going to the Needler’s Retreat in Ganonoque since 2008. This year things were a bit different: I was teaching! I wanted to share the Estonian inlay technique of Roositud. It looks like embroidery, but you are essentially stranding the contrasting yarn in front of the work as you go. It’s a two-row process that lets you do colourwork in the round without much pain and without adding a lot of extra bulk to the work.

It lets you do beautiful things like this (see? there was totally a reason for all this knitting):

(Aino’s Gloves by Nancy Bush and Roosimine socks by Caoua Coffee)

So I came up with a quick-to-knit workshop decorative project that was modelled on Estonian mittens:

And then someone suggested to me that I could make an advent calendar’s worth of them. That suggestion happened back in the summer, but I’m happy to report that this weekend I finally finished darning in all the ends:

I’m planning to put up and decorate our tree on Dec. 1st and stuff treats into the appropriate mitten for each day for the kids to find.

One other cool thing I wanted to show from the retreat was a modification Rollie Abkowitz made to my Clover Shawl. She made the v-shaped version, but then was disappointed that only *other* people could see the clover shape. She made 2 more and grafted on the front! Clever, eh?