Pricing is à la carte so you can have maximum control of your schedule and budget.
The basic items to keep in mind are (more specifics below):
- Retreat and materials fee—$600 + sales tax (retreat fee includes: instruction, materials, and handouts; sales tax is just over $50)
- (optional) Pay it forward community care – your choice. Suggested $50, $100, or $150, payable via PayPal or check. (see more details below)
- Lodging—Retreats run Sunday evening through Friday morning, so 5 nights either at the retreat center, Lakedale, or offsite. Lakedale extends off-season rates to us, and lodging at Lakedale includes breakfast. Lodging at Lakedale begins around $179 + tax per night. Some of the spaces can accommodate two (occasionally more) occupants, so it can be possible to share, in most cases with someone you know well enough to room with (a few of the Lodge rooms; the cabins generally have two separate bedrooms).
- Lunch/dinner catering—If you choose to have lunch and/or dinner with the group, many dietary requirements can be accommodated with advance notice, including gluten-free, vegetarian, and vegan. You can join for lunches and dinners, or lunches-only or dinners-only. Lunch and dinner is around $370 for the whole retreat, and we have a voluntary tip collection on the final day to thank the people who feed us.
- Transportation—If you’re coming from outside the islands (as most of us are), don’t forget whatever resources you need to travel to get to Seattle, plus transportation between Seattle and Lakedale. (See suggestions below.)
Please note: prices are in US dollars and are estimates to help you with budgeting. For most up-to-date pricing please check the registration form for a specific retreat. While we try to keep this page as current as possible, pricing can change from retreat to retreat.
As mentioned above, it is possible to significantly economize by sharing accommodations as well as travel to the San Juan islands. We have both a Ravelry group and a private Facebook group for participants to arrange lodging and travel collaborations. The Ravelry group is open. To be part of the private Facebook group, get in touch with us.
Here are more details:
Retreat and materials fee—
$600 (+ sales tax) this includes instruction, materials, and handouts. Sales tax is just over $50. Payment is due about 8 to 10 weeks in advance; the exact date will be in your confirmation message.
(optional!) Pay it forward community care—
If you’ve been to a retreat with Deb before, you may have noticed that it has been many years since Deb increased the retreat fee, and you’ll also notice a new (optional!) “pay it forward community care” line in this payment breakdown.
As we all know, the price of everything has gone up over the last few years. This community care piece is our way of covering those increased costs, while still keeping the retreat fee more financially accessible to those who need it, and the retreat fee is the only aspect of retreat pricing over which Deb has direct control.
Here’s how Pay it forward community care works:
The retreat fee is still $600 (+ sales tax of just over $50), payable via PayPal or check – just like previous years. If you are financially able, contributing your chosen Pay it forward community care amount (suggested $50, $100, or $150) helps Deb keep the retreat fee more financially accessible to those who need it, while also covering increasing costs.
We know many retreaters come retreat after retreat, and for that we thank you! Please know that contributing to this community care for one retreat is not an obligation to contribute for every retreat you attend – we know finances and financial obligations fluctuate over time. We always appreciate your joining the retreat, and trust you know your situation best.
As always if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.
With that note out of the way onwards to the rest of the details!
Lodging and breakfast at Lakedale—
Lakedale extends off-season rates to us. They have a variety of rooming options with different price points. Contact Lakedale directly by phone for reservations and talk with the Lakedale staff about capacities of different accommodations (800-617-2267). If you try to book online, everything will appear to be sold out because they are reserved for our group.
Retreats run Sunday evening through Friday morning, so 5 nights at Lakedale. A number of people come early or stay late to enjoy the environment.
- Special off-season 2026 Lakedale rates for our retreats:
- Lodge room $179/night plus tax (one or two queen beds)
- Log cabin $349/night plus tax (bedroom downstairs and a loft upstairs)
- Lake House $549/night plus tax (sleeps up to 10, check their page for specifics)
- least expensive: Sharing one of the two-bed lodge rooms with another participant (one room has separate bedrooms; the other two-bed rooms have separate queen-size beds; one-bed rooms have king-size beds).
- next least expensive: Sharing a cabin with two other participants (the cabins list greater capacities than three, but unless you know each other really well, check out exactly how sleeping arrangements will be organized; using the sofa bed is rarely a good choice because of its central location).
If the lodge is full and you have transportation, it is possible to stay off-site (say, at an AirBnB).
Lunch and/or dinner catering—
If you choose to have lunch and dinner with the group, 2026 pricing lunches and dinners Monday through Thursday is about $365 (check or money order) or about $380 (PayPal–I am only a pass-through to the caterer with $0 extra and PayPal charges me a transaction fee), plus an anonymous, optional tip on the final day of the retreat.
Many dietary requirements can be accommodated with advance notice, including gluten-free, vegetarian, and vegan. (Lunches-only or Dinners-only are also available.)
Note that the catering and PayPal fees have been least easy to predict far in advance – the registration form and your confirmation note will have the most recent information.
Transportation—
If you’re coming from outside the islands (as most of us are), figure in whatever resources you need to travel to get to Seattle, plus transportation between Seattle and Lakedale.
- For the vast majority, this involves the ferry from Anacortes (off-season, car and driver round-trip is $70–78, with the lower pricing for senior/disabled drivers). Riders (in cars driven by others) or walk-ons are about $16 round-trip for regular adults and about $8 for seniors. This is a good reason for people to coordinate transportation and chip in for someone’s gas and base ferry costs, or to share a car rental. Ferry tickets are purchased on the Anacortes end only and are round-trip (no payment on the return). Once you know your travel plans, it’s good to make ferry reservations at https://wsdot.wa.gov/travel/washington-state-ferries
- The shuttle between SeaTac and Friday Harbor is about $160 round-trip (but make sure the shuttle service you’re looking at operates on the day you need).
- There are also flights to and from the Friday Harbor airport from several Seattle locations, and that mode of transportation may occasionally work best for someone’s travel plans.
- Sometimes flight plans require an extra night’s lodging to make ferry connections, although the ferries run late into the evening (as well as early in the morning) and it’s possible to arrive at Lakedale after hours. I have used inexpensive AirBnB listings near SeaTac to bridge the gaps when I don’t want to do the flight-and-drive all at once. When I collaborate with others on transportation, we usually go straight through from SeaTac to the San Juans.
Some people also like to budget extra for island activities–whale watching, spa treatments, and the like–although there is also a lot to do that doesn’t cost. Be aware, however, that we often have opportunities to buy local fleeces and yarns and that there are terrific new and used bookstores.
If you’re on a tight budget, everything you need for the retreat itself is included in your materials and retreat fees ($600 + sales tax). You can work with a spindle, which is easier to transport than a wheel. There are many great no-cost island adventures, a number of them involving good walks and discoveries right outside the cabin and Lodge doors at Lakedale.
Transportation, lodging, and food are the variables you can play with to minimize expense, and I suggest you focus most closely on the first two. The food provided by our caterers is good. I participated in a number of events at Lakedale before beginning to facilitate retreats there, and ride- and space-sharing made it possible for me to do so.
We have detailed information available on transportation alternatives and encourage folks to get in touch with each other and make the logistics easy (available here). The first time I needed to get to Lakedale, it seemed really complicated. Now it’s just a series of options, played like a game, that results in success. In my opinion, being at Lakedale is well worth the trip!