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 :-)

January 23, 2010

Our meeting this month was about Garter Bars. We had 2 new members (Martha and Margaret) in attendance and 1 visitor (Nancy) along with Reba, Alysha, BJ and Elaine. We had 3 sizes of garter bars to work with. Standard, Bulky and Bond. Everyone was amazed and relieved that maneuvering the garter bar was not as difficult as imagined. Swatches and dishcloths were made.

December 5, 2009

We decided to combine November and December meetings into one, due to the Christmas Crazy Season :-)  In fact it was so crazy we forgot to take pictures!!  But meet we did....... with Reba, Alysha, Amber and BJ being in attendance. Reba had recently gotten her new lace carriage and we all watched in awe of the magical lace!!  It is always fun to play with new toys.

October 24, 2009

The meeting this month was on Christmas Knitting.  We had patterns for ornaments and stockings available.  Reba, Alysha, BJ and Amber were in attendance and we had some walk-in visitors.

September 26 2009

This meeting was our 2nd meeting at the Hobby Lobby in Paducah in their classroom.  3 Visitors attended: Jim, Mavis and Amber (with Amber becoming a club member)

Our Club History.......

In the fall of 2008 a few of us in the IL/KY area decided to make a local Machine Knit group happen…..do or die!! Only a few of us were able to make it that 1st meeting, but we are a determined bunch! We all hibernated over the winter and gave it another go in the spring of 2009. Most of our early meetings were show and tell and reviewing each others’ library of MK books and magazines! But that only got us more inspired :-)  The March 2009 meeting we worked on slippers on the bulky. That was BJ’s first handshake with a metal bed bulky and she bought one the next month she loved it so much!! We tried to have a monthly meeting at Reba’s house each month that spring…….one meeting was spent learning a lace carriage and color changer. Another meeting was learning to punch our own punch cards. Then we decided to grow a bit and started meeting at the Hobby Lobby back room in August 2009.  In hopes of adding members we made our meeting all about Introduction to Machine Knitting……with numerous machines in several gauges set up, we supplied the yarn and instructions and had a blast intriguing people with the speed of machine knitting!