My weekend with The Rebels

Last weekend was steeped in friendship, laughter, creativity, and immaculate vibes in Bittern Lake, Alberta at the Rebel Hearts crafting retreat.

The Yarn Rebels are a multi-discipline craft collective, specializing in social outings, field trips, and biannual retreats in Alberta. Their tagline is “not your grandma’s crafting group,” and getting a dozen or so of these fine folks together for three days only amplifies the raucous energy.

I arrived at the Bittern Lake Lodge on Friday after work, reuniting with my dear friend and roomie for the weekend, Phaidra, who arrived before me and proclaimed “Dude you are NOT ready!” She even brought paper streamers and a tiny disco ball to decorate our room, we joked that we were giving ourselves the college dorm experience.

Bittern Lake Lodge is primarily hunting lodge, with a bunkhouse and a “party cabin” where we set up our crafting stations in the dining hall, overlooking the protected prairie land.

When packing for a crafting retreat, it’s important to bring only the essentials, which is why I packed four strategically-chosen WIPs. Each project scratched a different itch:

• Storm Sweater by Petite Knit — a textured pattern knit in-the-round with repeating sections of knits and purls.
• Cable Crush Cardigan by Knitatude/We Are Knitters — a textured pattern knit flat with cables.
• Dark Academia Sweater by Sharon Hartley — a stranded colourwork design with elaborate charts.
• Musselburgh Hat by Ysolda Teague — a plain in-the-round project that required no brain power, just in case.

Did I finish anything? Not even close, but I did make decent progress on three of the four! (ironically, I didn’t touch the Musselburgh once all weekend)

Despite being hosted by a group called the Yarn Rebels, the retreat was very craft-inclusive — Phaidra brought a bunch of sewing projects — from upcycled clothes to her ever-growing hexagon quilt; another lady brought a diamond painting kit to work on, complete with a stand and a ring light, while her mother oscillated between loom-knitting and making funky beaded necklaces.

Inclusivity, both of crafts and of people, is very important to Yarn Rebels founder Krystal Grichen. I am very grateful to have become friends with Krystal, who exudes creativity and Cool Aunt energy beyond measure.

The group was a diverse mix of veteran Rebels and newbies. This was only the third-ever Rebel Hearts Retreat, but it immediately felt like a weekend-long party with long-lost friends, staying up late laughing like we were 12 years old at camp again.

I bonded with Lee and Jen, fellow newbies to the retreat crowd and talented knitters. They’re both engineers, and when I told them that I dated one before I met my husband, they both went “oh no, I’m sorry,” and I cackled like a hyena. One of them brought the book How to Piss Off Men: 109 Things to Say to Shatter the Male Ego by Kyle Prue, which slowly made its way around the cabin all weekend.

The Rebels span multiple generations, even within the same family. Krystal’s own Mama Char (as she’s lovingly called by the community) was there, a walking encyclopedia of knitting knowledge and one of the weekend’s presenters.

Saturday morning, Mama Char hosted a conversational workshop on colourwork alongside Jess from Baa Realis Fibre, offering a crash course in the different styles of colourwork and tips and tricks on how to do them. In addition to being a yarn dyer, Jess sells Pacific Knit Co‘s Doodle Kits — bite-sized beginner-friendly stranded colourwork charts designed by Jamie Lomax. Jess brought out the Doodle Bar for the pop-up shop that day as well, brightly-coloured mini-skeins to go with the Doodle Deck packs of colourwork chart cards.

It wouldn’t be a crafty event without a little retail therapy. In addition to Baa Realis, we were graced with the presence of Tree Nuts Buttons — a woodworker who makes buttons, jewellery, and home goods out of wood and resin; Janice from Country Girl Creations — maker of project bags and purses; and Deena of Gog + Magog was there selling her teacup candles and new-age accoutrements. I bought a cute cross-body bag and stitch markers, a carved acorn necklace, and a skein of beautiful variegated yarn (that Jess originally brought for Krystal but Krystal generously offered it to me instead).

We even found goodie bags in our room, packed with curated buttons (mine being puzzle pieces imbued with dried purple heart blossoms), a notebook and pen, retreat-exclusive mini skein set, a “yarn safe” with notions, and a handwritten card.

On Friday night, Deena led a couple of “Wellness Hour” workshops, making teacup candles and reading tea leaves. Phaidra and I opted out of the Friday workshops to sit and craft, but the ladies who did partake seemed like they were having a good time! And the den that was repurposed for the workshop space smelled amazing.

Before now, my barometer for retreat weekends was a yoga retreat on Salt Spring Island I went on about a decade ago. It was very regimented, where skipping any of the scheduled yoga or meditation classes was met with sideways glances and food was not readily accessible beyond three square meals a day. In a stark and welcome contrast, the Rebel Retreat was flexible and casual throughout. Participation was encouraged but not mandatory, and a steady stream of snacks kept us going between the hearty meals served up by the lodge’s professional chef.

Being a hunting lodge in rural Alberta, it’s no surprise the weekend was full of critters — both of the taxidermized variety and the living.

It took mere hours before I met the owner’s cats. I spotted them through the picture windows of the party cabin and ran out in my sock feet to greet the kitties; a gorgeous seal point Siamese who wanted nothing to do with me, and a chunky black cat with a pendulous belly and a chunk missing from one ear, who loved up on me for that night only and then firmly rejected my advances the rest of the weekend.

I didn’t expect my bird ID app, Merlin, to get a workout that weekend, either. On Saturday, I was sitting on the deck with Phaidra and Mama Char when a sudden cacophony of honks rang out. We looked up to find a truly obscene number of snow geese flying overhead.

And I don’t just mean ‘a lot of geese,’ I mean ‘more geese than I’ve ever seen occupy the sky at one time in my 31 years of life.’

Not to be outdone, that evening I was outside watching the sunset with Lee and Jen when another Rebel named Courtney came sprinting out of the bush all excited about a herd of deer she spotted. Curious, we followed her down the gravel road, and sure enough we saw dark shapes in a distant field.

Courtney, an avid hunter, whacked out her binoculars to get a closer look. “Those aren’t deer, I think they’re turkeys!” she says before booking it into the field to catch one. Before she could get too close, the “turkeys” take flight, and my Merlin app identifies them as sandhill cranes. Dozens of them. It was a magical experience.

I think that’s the real beauty of a group like the Yarn Rebels, you come out thinking it’ll be all about crafting or learning, and leave with an abundance of new friends and some really special memories.