The Florida Fiber In
Well after much ado, we all finally got into acceptable rooms. It seems that the hotel had more damage than they were willing to admit and many of the rooms had issues such as doors that wouldn't open, doors that wouldn't close, mold, air conditioners that didn't work properly and the list goes on. Some of the participants went across the road to another hotel. Personally my second room was fine after they replaced the air conditioner unit. Then we had to deal with the next issue, the hotel only served banquet food and a breakfest buffet so there was no onsite food. And then we discovered that our conference rooms were upstairs and there was no elevator and the rooms weren't really separate. The facility issues could be elaborated on and on but suffice it to say that next year we will be sure to visit the hotel in person to check out the facilities.
Friday night we had a social with cake and drinks, that was fun and everyone settled in to get to know one another. Then Rhoda showed us how to knit fun fur into coverings for our flip flops. These came out so cute! I stayed up half the night finishing mine and then walked out onto the pier in them at midnight. The Beach really suffered from the pounding of the hurricanes and some local fishermen told me that they had just spent a bundle refurbishing the beach. I responded that all that sand was now in our port and they could come get it at will. We had a laugh at that but I think there is something to be said for leaving sand where the Mother wants it as she will just come along and move it back no matter how much you spend moving it to where you want it.
Saturday morning we all had the buffet for breakfast and enjoyed one anothers company until the demos started at nine. Laura did a great job demystifying knitting with beads. I missed the knitting board demo running around doing admin stuff but caught up with Melanie a bit later for a personal intro. I managed to catch enough of Rhonda as she explained the process of rainbow dying to discover that my attempt didn't work very well cause I had used too much dye, it should be wet not floating and you leave white spots which you work away by gently pushing the dye from each side into one another. Rhonda left the dye pots on the balcony to heat in the sun and I brought them home, tonight I will rinse and see what we got! Shopping commenced and I spent my alloted budget on some fun accessories, avoiding even looking at the larger items as I knew I could not justify any more equipment.
Lunch time - we ran out for fast food as there wasn't much time allocated since I thought there was an onsite restaurant.
Heidi showed us Navajo plying and although I didn't get to actually practice yet, I saw enough of it to get refreshed and I think I can do it again. While Melanie was showing me around her boards I was overcome with a nauseating headache and decided I had to lie down and missed Gina's spindle spinning demo and came in at the end of Michelle's weaving demo but at least I could function for the business meeting and was able to facilitate that. We had fallen a bit short of expenses but the attendees took up another collection and we met those. We discussed what type of feedback we needed to collect for the next one and all agreed that we wanted to have another.
I drove a few of us to dinner and we visited while we waited and we finished up by eating huge desserts. Gina and I then proceeded to work on the back porch of the bar in the hotel to finish warping my loom and having a drink. I discovered that warping a loom is much more fun when you have company to visit with while working.
Sunday morning we all had the breakfest buffet again and visited until we just had to get on the road. It was a fun weekend and I am looking forward to a repeat. There were many new friends to be made and there really wasn't enough time so we are all looking forward to the next time we can get together.
Friday night we had a social with cake and drinks, that was fun and everyone settled in to get to know one another. Then Rhoda showed us how to knit fun fur into coverings for our flip flops. These came out so cute! I stayed up half the night finishing mine and then walked out onto the pier in them at midnight. The Beach really suffered from the pounding of the hurricanes and some local fishermen told me that they had just spent a bundle refurbishing the beach. I responded that all that sand was now in our port and they could come get it at will. We had a laugh at that but I think there is something to be said for leaving sand where the Mother wants it as she will just come along and move it back no matter how much you spend moving it to where you want it.
Saturday morning we all had the buffet for breakfast and enjoyed one anothers company until the demos started at nine. Laura did a great job demystifying knitting with beads. I missed the knitting board demo running around doing admin stuff but caught up with Melanie a bit later for a personal intro. I managed to catch enough of Rhonda as she explained the process of rainbow dying to discover that my attempt didn't work very well cause I had used too much dye, it should be wet not floating and you leave white spots which you work away by gently pushing the dye from each side into one another. Rhonda left the dye pots on the balcony to heat in the sun and I brought them home, tonight I will rinse and see what we got! Shopping commenced and I spent my alloted budget on some fun accessories, avoiding even looking at the larger items as I knew I could not justify any more equipment.
Lunch time - we ran out for fast food as there wasn't much time allocated since I thought there was an onsite restaurant.
Heidi showed us Navajo plying and although I didn't get to actually practice yet, I saw enough of it to get refreshed and I think I can do it again. While Melanie was showing me around her boards I was overcome with a nauseating headache and decided I had to lie down and missed Gina's spindle spinning demo and came in at the end of Michelle's weaving demo but at least I could function for the business meeting and was able to facilitate that. We had fallen a bit short of expenses but the attendees took up another collection and we met those. We discussed what type of feedback we needed to collect for the next one and all agreed that we wanted to have another.
I drove a few of us to dinner and we visited while we waited and we finished up by eating huge desserts. Gina and I then proceeded to work on the back porch of the bar in the hotel to finish warping my loom and having a drink. I discovered that warping a loom is much more fun when you have company to visit with while working.
Sunday morning we all had the breakfest buffet again and visited until we just had to get on the road. It was a fun weekend and I am looking forward to a repeat. There were many new friends to be made and there really wasn't enough time so we are all looking forward to the next time we can get together.
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