February Meeting 2011

We had a slim crowd for our February 26th meeting.  In attendance were Reba, BJ and Sandi.  We started with Show and Tell.

Sandi's first MK piece! knitted EON on standard gauge.

Reba brought some swatches she has been working with on her Passap E6000.

BJ is experiementing with running cotton spandex along with yarn on Passap E6000.

These are baby cocoons (one finished, one unfinished) made on the Bulky.

Baby Hat on Passap E6000

Shrug on Bulky

Sandi brought her vintage machine hoping 3 heads was better than one with the poorly written instruction manual.  It turned out indeed with 3 heads and some trial and error we got it to knit!!!

We verified our next meeting will be on March 26th.

Hope to see you there!!

January 2011 Meeting

As decided upon last year, we are now collecting dues for club membership at $10.00 per calendar year.  We are a very small club and I am thrilled to report we already have 5 paid members!!! We are hoping to use this money for booth fees at local craft fairs in order to demonstrate machine knitting and recruit more people to the craft!!

We had a brand new member attend her first meeting.  Sandi has two standard gauge machines, but had yet to use them.  We looked over the machines and found her sponge bars to be totally dead!! No knitting on those allowed for her!  Alysha has almost the same machine and volunteered to give her lessons on hers.  This went very well and Sandi will soon be knitting :-)  We also explained yarn choices to Sandi.

Our theme for this year is Knitting for Charity.  The first few months of 2011 we will be knitting baby items.  Reba and BJ worked on Baby Cocoons, and yarn was passed out for all to take home and work with.  There was a total explosion of yarn and our meeting was the messiest it has ever been!!!

Reba brought a gorgeous sweater to "show and tell" that she is in the middle of.  It is from an issue of Knitwords and is working up very nicely!!  Reba wants to have this done before the CKMG seminar in Raleigh, NC.

We have verified our next meeting date will be February 26th which as usual is the 4th Saturday of the month.
Come join us!!

October Meeting

We were all very excited this meeting as Margie has decided to downsize her considerable stash of coned yarns!!!  We had a yarn sale :-) and every single cone now has a new home!

Margie brought a huge bag of BEAUTIFUL swatches that she has made through the years, and she can tell you every piece of clothing they were made for and what yarns were used.......amazing!!!

She also brought a homemade yarn twister that her husband made out of a tomato cage and wood, very useful and inexpensive idea!

BJ brought the Boye electric yarn winder for experimentation and review

Our knitting theme this month was Christmas knitting.  BJ decided on the snowman from the Bond Archives on her Bulky and Alysha decided on the Santa Hat from Kangamoo Knits Archives.

Once again a fun and educational meeting, even thought we did not get our knitting completed, but at least we still have time before Christmas.

edited to add finished photo of Snowman Toy

September Meeting

Old Business--old is a dirty word, so we ignore it!!
New Business--Effective January 2011 we will charge $10.00 annually for membership dues.
Guests will be allowed two free meetings before being requested to join.
BJ has volunteered to be the money organizer.

Fun Business--We had a new member join us, Margie

and she graciously brought a DOOR PRIZE! It was won by BJ!

and a pattern book for our Club Library

Our Theme this month was Knitweaving

and of course we always have chat time :-) and reference material browsing time

hopefully everyone will be getting more time to knit and attend meetings now that summer is over!

Theme for next month will be Christmas Knitting.  Hope to see y'all there!!

August Meeting

Alysha was having some trouble with her machine so we tried to put our heads together and figure out what was going on.  We did a lot of poking and prodding and we found some missing screws and other minor things her husband is going to check on.  Hopefully, this will get her machine fully functioning!

We are currently trying to think of a theme for our September meeting on the 25th!

Meeting Updates

hmmm...... I have been a bit lax here-SHAME on me :-)

Our April meeting was cancelled due to 3 members attending the Spring Fling in Peru Indiana.  Boy, did we have a good time!!  A lot was learned that weekend :-) 

We have had to change meeting spots due to classes being held at the Paducah Hobby Lobby on Saturdays.  That is a shame because the tables and lighting were very good there for bringing our machines and knitting.  We are now meeting in a church basement which is very nice but we cannot clamp our machines on to the tables.  But, where there is a will there is a way and we are bringing in machine stands or using bubbly shelf liner stuff.

Our May meeting was a bit slim with only Reba and myself (BJ) attending.  I knit the "10 minute bulky dishcloth" from a new" News and Views" magazine on my KH400 convertible machine and Reba did some swatching.  We re-discussed all the great classes we attended at Spring Fling.

At the June meeting we had 3 members (Reba, BJ and Elaine) in attendance with 2 visitors.  We sure enjoy having visitors and these were non-machine knitters, so it was fun explaining and showing them things. Elaine has a new to her machine and we spent some time getting her hooked up and up to speed on its attributes and she was able to swatch some very pretty patterns.  I forgot to take pictures but I will try to do better next time.

Next month's meeting is cancelled due to other summer obligations and the August meeting is cancelled due to attending Ileen's seminar in Hannibal, Missouri.

February 27th Wool Dyeing Workshop

We decided to take a little detour in knitting and learned to dye some wool this month.  Lucky for us the Hobby Lobby room has a sink and we brought crock pots to use for the heating process.  We used Wilton cake icing dye so that you can use regular kitchen items with no harm.  Elaine was our illustrious instructor!! She has been published in the Cast On magazine for numerous things INCLUDING dyeing yarn :-)

you soak your yarn with water and vinegar

then you dip, dap, paint your colors on

then we put them in crock pots to cook in the dye

after the color is absorbed into the yarn and water is pretty much clear

you let the yarn cool, and then rinse till clear and spin dry in a salad spinner

and then TADA!!

BEAUTIFUL YARN :-)