Monthly Archives: July 2013

English Country Dancing and Calling

I had another opportunity to try calling at my local ECD in March, with Joanna Reiner letting me call one of the dances from her program.

In June I organized a community caller dance as part of a fundraising campaign for the series. We were lucky to have so many volunteers who had some experience with dance calling and the night was well attended. It gave me the chance to call a few dances and work on putting together a program, while reinforcing what I'm working on by passing along what I've learned to others. We had great musicians who were very patient with all the volunteer callers. It was a great night.

Most recently we just went to Joanna's wedding dance! It was a very warm night, but with constant punch and water breaks and a truly overwhelming tea break, with three tables full of amazing baked-goods, everyone was able to keep dancing. It was also a great way to see so many dance friends in one place!

Morris Dancing

Mystic Garland danced at NEFFA and Gore Place's Sheep Shearing Festival again this year. Both are becoming strong annual traditions for the team, which helps keep going throughout the year. Of course I love having the team dance at NEFFA because it means I get to attend the rest of the festival for free. This year I also brought Vasya for the first time and he really liked it! Living in Providence also means we are close enough to make it a much easier day trip, leaving at 11:30 got us home at a reasonable midnight.

We're gearing up for a few summer dances and planning our fall return to preparations for Make We Joy.

Pinewoods

I went back to yet another work weekend at Pinewoods, Memorial Day weekend, and became an honorary member of the "Scottish Horde." The horde was formed during a work weekend of mostly all Scottish session volunteers. The next weekend when there were more of us around we met the horde in all their glory and thus legends began. My membership was completed by dancing the Pinewoods Reel and being in the picking-up-sticks crew with the horde.

It was absolutely freezing most of the weekend, but the sun came out for Monday and camp was at its most beautiful as we left.

RILA Annual Conference

The conference this year was great! A ton of work, but the location was beautiful, the speakers were diverse and there were after-hours events to make the drive to Newport worth it for everyone. I brought in two speaker sessions and worked on sponsorship. We still have to have our review meeting, but all of the responses we've gotten so far were incredibly positive.

Juniper Moon Photo Shoot

Susie takes all of her own photos for the Juniper Moon Yarn patterns and pattern books and this year the photo shoot moved up to the Boston area. With Lauria at the helm I volunteered for a day organizing the thousands of photos Susie had taken the previous days and the day I was there. I snuck in some ratings for the photos I thought were the strongest and I can't wait to see which ones make it in the finished patterns.

Knitting

I'm still hosting weekly digital knit nights and despite the heat have made a few things since my last post.

I made these mittens to go with the hat I made for my mom:

Which fits like a charm, this time around.

And I made a hat for Lucia! She liked the red beret I made and I happened to have very Lucia-like yarn around to make her her own: