Donna Druchunas's Blog

Sorry but I'm not writing much today. Enjoy the photos!

1) Visiting the Wool Clip shop. This shop is run by a cooperative of 15 women who live in Cumbria. They all own sheep or angora goats and they design and make the items to sell in the shop. (They also sell yarn and fiber but I didn't take any pictures of those products.)



2) Picnic lunch at a Quaker meeting house that was built in 1720.



3) Visit to a Shetland sheep farm. I learned a lot about Shetland sheep that I hadn't known, although Shetland is one of my favorite types of wool yarn. Fun! These sheep are over due for giving up their wool!

I like to have a plan for a writing retreat. It may be something as simple as "write every day" when I'm just trying to give myself more space to explore creativity or to mine my subconscious for ideas. But on this retreat, I want to get the bulk of a book finished. The retreat is 2 parts: 1) In England, with my co-author and 2) In Lithuania.

Here's the initial plan:

1-Finish writing all of the knitting sections for the book. I have a good outline and a rough draft of most of the material, but it needs to be revised for the type of book I want this to be. Still, I think more than half of the work is done

2-Get half of the patterns written and to the knitters. I think I've whittled it down to a manageable 19 projects. But I may have to readjust and add a few more sock designs and take out a few mittens. We'll see.

3-Have the history section outlined and ready to fill in while I'm in Lithuania. I want to write it while I'm there because it's the 1000 year anniversary of Lithuania this summer and I think being there at this time will bring up some interesting ideas, and will make the chapter on history more lively.

4-Get a good feeling for where my co-author is with her portions of the book.

5-Review, revise, and sign the contract.

6-Nail down deadlines for finishing the writing and the projects.

7-Go over photos to see what might work for various sections of the book and to decide if we need any new photos from Lithuania.

8-Decide what maps to include.

I think that's more than enough.

June likes to write in the evenings. I usually prefer to write in the mornings or afternoons. So, during our retreat, we will do some enjoyable things in the mornings -- visit friends, go swimming or walking, exercise, do some sight seeing, and so forth.

I need to be online during my normal working hours in the US so I can work on my day job, too, so we'll come home for lunch, then work in the afternoon at the house or, perhaps, at a cafe. In addition to writing, we'll be looking over research materials and examining knitted samples in June's personal collection.

In the evenings we'll work at home, and sometimes take a night off to watch a movie and just relax.

Weekends we will make up as we go.

I think giving yourself time to think, exercise, and relax during a writing retreat is just as important as blocking out time to write. In a way, a writing retreat is a way to honor your writing and your life as an artist in addition to just getting practical work done. It's a reminder that some things are more important than money and that the process is at least as important as the end product.

My only worry is that June does not know how to slow down. We need to spend a lot of time writing. So I hope by giving ourselves the mornings for other things, not related to the book, that June will be able to settle in and work for the rest of the day. She is a very active, energetic, and restless woman! Her energy level amazes me. She does know how to get serious work done, though, and she has done some major research and writing projects in the past. So I'm sure she knows her own pace and has work habits that suit her lifestyle. She wears me out though! LOL.

When I get to Lithuania, I'll also be writing in the evenings because I'm attending a conference during the day (the conference is related to another writing project that is currently on hold but not dead). But I also need time to meet with friends and hang out. Since I only have a short section to write while I'm there, viskas būs gerai (everything will be OK).

OK, ttyl. More pictures tomorrow. We went to the Wool Clip shop this morning, and to see some Shetland sheep.... later tonight we are driving Julija and Rasa all the way to Liverpool to catch a flight back to Lithuania. It's the same flight I'll be on in 2 weeks. So tomorrow morning's free time will most likely be spent sleeping.

Today was a great day to transition from teaching and vacationing to writing. Yesterday June took Nancy Bush to Swaledale where she taught a lace workshop. Julija and Rasa, from the felting group Baltos Kandys, went with them. So Dom and I had the house to ourselves for the day. Dom left this morning, wishing he had taken a third week off of work.

So today, I am here by myself. After breakfast and feeding the hens, I took a walk to the end of the nameless road that goes through Newbiggin, and then I came home and did some writing and editing work.

I hadn't realized how exhausted all the tourism and teaching and socializing had made me. I was totally wiped out and took a 3 hour nap this afternoon. Now I'm waiting for June and Julija and Rasa to come home and wondering if June's planned anything for dinner. I'm not really hungry, but it's getting to be that time of day.

Here, as promised, are some photos of the outside of June's house and the surrounding neighbors in Chapel Farm.

Here's where I'll be writing for the next two weeks. It's the home of June Hall, my friend and co-author of the future book on Lithuanian knitting. Since I have to be around to answer email for my day job after 3pm local time (8am US mt time), I am planning to write in the afternoons and evenings, and let June plan some fun mornings for us visiting friends, seeing the area, swimming at the pool, or going for walks. June is so full of energy, I'm sure I'll have to keep reminding her that we are on a writing retreat. It's easy for me to remember, because I'm in a new place. June will be home, which is always full of distractions!

Here's a view of the writing areas in the house:

The kitchen and dining room are wonderful writing spaces. The kitchen is the newest part of the house. It was finished last spring in an area that was formerly an attached barn. It's a wonderful room with modern appliances and new cabinetry but designed in a way that it fits perfectly into this 300 year-old house.



The dining room has lots of natural light and two good writing spaces: the table and a window seat. Wonderfully comfortable and sometimes able to pick up the neighbor's wi-fi signal.




The office is upstairs. The steps seem to be as old as the house itself. No socks for slippers on these stairs. For some reason stairs in old houses always make me worry about falling. But I don't think there are any ghosts here waiting to push me down.



The living room shows some of the best signs of the age of the house. The walls are so thick, and they slope so the bottom is about 6 inches thicker than the top. Everything is finished with plaster (not sheet rock) which ads depth and character to the room. The antique hutch is one that June purchased after moving into the house, and it's made in the style that was common in this area, giving a little extra authentic charm. And the carpet is made from Herdwick wool!



I can't imagine living here. I'm sure with daily life, it would become "just" home. But being here feels like being inside a story book. Harry Potter may even have once lived here!



Next post: pictures from outside! Flowers, sheep, hens, stone houses & walls, green fields, and more. There are almost as many great writing spaces outside as there are inside.

I taught two short workshops on Friday and two more on Saturday, so I didn't have a lot of time to look around at Woolfest, but I made sure to go around and see all the vendors twice. I had wanted to take a 1-hour workshop on magic knitting with Annemor Sundbø, but the times overlapped with my own class. I did get to meet Annemor, however, and have dinner with her and some of the other teachers on the last night of the festival.

I also met Ruth Lee, author of Contemporary Knitting: For Textile Artists, a wonderful book with ideas that will spur any designer's creativity and inspire you to look at knitting in a different way. Ruth was selling her unique creations and her book, but she wasn't teaching. She did mention that she'd love to come and teach in America, so I'll have to see how I can help her make that happen.

Since Woolfest was started five years ago, many other knitting events have sprung up around the UK. Yesterday I met Jo Watson, who is organizing a UK Knit Camp in Scotland next August, where I'll be teaching with many other designers and authors. There's not much info on the website yet, but keep checking back if you want updates.



My favorite part of traveling is meeting interesting people. So far this trip has been an astounding success. Now, to hibernate for a couple of weeks and write. Even though I love meeting people, I can only take so much socialization before I need to re-energize. Besides, I want to have this Lithuanian book finished to turn into my publisher in a few months!