Monday, September 14, 2009

Yoga and dresses

I needed a break, so I went on a vacation over the weekend. I left my husband home with the kids (with his blessing), and went on a yoga retreat. I decided I wanted to do something about a month ago, so I got online and started searching for retreats in Texas. Lots of personal retreats popped up, which basically involved going someplace all by myself, staying in a cabin, and spending the weekend meditating all by myself. Not exactly what I had in mind. I wanted to get away, but I didn't want to necessarily be by myself.

The next option I found was a spa retreat. Lots of those out there, but I really didn't want to spend the weekend getting massages and facials. Besides, most of those were way out of my price range, for some reason ($1,000 for a weekend and the like).

But then I found this little yoga retreat in East Texas near Tyler called Yoga in the Pines. It seemed focused more on fitness than the spirituality of yoga, which is my main interest in yoga. I don't want to sit around and say 'om' while meditating, but I do appreciate the physical strength that goes into certain yoga poses.

It seemed pretty small, and I didn't know anything about it except what was on the website, but I decided to give it a chance. This past weekend was my yoga retreat, and it was fantastic. It was only ten women, not including the instructor, and we met at her personal studio in the forest in the outskirts of a small town near Tyler. I don't go to yoga classes here in town - I don't really have the opportunity with two little ones - so I was a bit concerned that I would be completely out of my league surrounded by yoga bodies and expensive yoga gear, but all of the other women, while having varying levels of fitness, were very nice and friendly and down to earth. I had a great time. We stayed in a little cabin nestled in the pines, and had homecooked meals the entire weekend. We had sessions every day, and three on Saturday, so I'm a bit sore today, but very motivated to keep it up.

I highly recommend it.

In other news, I finished my knit dress before I left and I even wore it to a work event last week.

Twist dress front

This is actually a pattern for a shirt that I transformed into a dress. I added an inch (I'm short and there was a tunic option, I added the inch to the tunic option). The shirt has a little wrap flap in the front, so I had to sew that together. It's not a big deal on a top because there are pants underneath, but it didn't work on a dress.

Twist dress back

It has a twist in the front, which is a fun addition.

I think it turned out really well, although if I make it again, I need to remember to make it one size smaller, it's just a tad baggy.

I already started working on another dress, McCall's 5882. This one is a bit more complicated as it involved darts and a zipper.

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