January Minutes

This month’s meeting was led by Vice President Beth Soper as our fearless leader has flown south.

Mandie Harrington (secretary) reported that the Membership Directory was in progress but not everyone had responded.  The draft was passed around for additions and corrections.  If you have not responded to the directory survey please do so here or email me with that information.

Barb Bettegnies (Special Programming Committee Chair) asked for additional members to help with the Cat Bordhi committee and Peg Alexander joined.  Barb reports that Cat will split her travel expenses between us, TNNA, and the Small Knits Symposium in Bloomington.  She has asked Cat to extend her stay at the hotel she is staying at for TNNA, and we are making headway toward choosing a location. 

Barb passed around a list of classes Cat offers and asked people to vote.  If you did not get to the meeting but plan to attend the workshop in April, Titles are:

Lecture 

Twenty Misleading Knitting Myths-Uncovered and set right

Time Travel to Peru - When modern and indigenous knitters join as one

Classes

Seven Super Skills Cowl
Cat’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks
New Pathways for Sock Knitters
Personal Footprints for Insouciant Sock Knitters
Personal Footprints for Rebellious Sock Knitters
Carefree Moebius Knitting
Advanced Moebius Knitting and Designing
Engineering New Stitch Patterns
Finding the Fountain of Fresh Knitting Ideas

Please let Barb or I know your preferences if you have them or if you need more information about any of the classes.

Guild members were asked to come to a decision on this year’s charity knitting.  Mary Ellen Lohr suggested the Tit-a-long for breast cancer survivors.  Beth brought up the orphanage in Zimbabwe which we knit sweaters for last year has 60 more children newborn-12 in need of sweaters.  Marsha Callahan suggested Craine House, A halfway house on Michigan Road where non-violent offenders can serve out their sentences with their children, and the kids have a need of sweaters.

The options were discussed and it was agreed that we would have two charity knitting projects, one small and one larger.  The small project is the knitted breasts.  Sweaters will be collected for Zimbabwe until June when they can be delivered, and sweaters after that will be for Craine House. 

The pattern for the knitted breasts is here. 

They have a need for sizes C and larger, especially sets.  Please Please go ahead and fill them with polyester fiberfill and leave a tail, but don’t close them.  They will add a weight and close them up.  There is no need for the icord or buttons. 

We will get more information about the sweaters for Zimbabwe and Craine house, but all sizes from newborn to youth large are needed.

At February’s meeting anyone who wants can bring yarn (preferably worsted and washable) for sharing or swapping for these projects.

Barb also announced that we are tentatively scheduling Lucy Neatby for Spring 2015.  She will call her to make more specific plans.

Mandie did the Tip of the Month, about weaving in ends of yarn as you knit.  I have a blog post about that here.

Paula Winnig also mentioned the “helpful notes” on Ravelry projects.  So, if you are looking at a pattern and you click the projects tab, you can sort by people who have marked the project notes as helpful (they have a little life preserver on them).  This is useful if you’re stuck, or if you’re altering a pattern in a way someone else may have done before you.

Alice Bell did the Book Report this month on Nicky Epstein’s Knitted Embellishments.  She also brought in some beautiful examples of her work from this book, including a gorgeous tree skirt with various knitted trees all over it.

Laurie Hagans mentioned the yarn crawl Roving Indiana.  You buy a passport for $5 from any of the 8 participating yarn shops.  You get a 10% discount at each participating shop during the crawl, a chance to win the shop prize at each shop you visit, a portion of the pattern for the crawl (visit all 8 to get the full pattern), and if you make it to all 8 shops you leave the completed section of your passport to be entered in a prize drawing for the overall prize.

Participating shops are

The Clay Purl - Nashville

In a Yarn Basket - Bloomington,

Mass Ave - Indianapolis, Nomad Yarns – Plainfield

Scotland Yarn - Shelbyville

Shabby Sheep and Ewe - Columbus

Sheep Street - Martinsville, and Starstruck Cat Studio - Greenwood.

The event takes place from February 21^st to March 2^nd.

Joyce Mallette gave the program on attached i-cord.  A tutorial can be found here.  She gave a tip to start the i-cord with 1 stitch instead of 3 and yo twice on the first row to make a nicer beginning, and then S2KP at the end to 1 stitch instead of binding off 3. 

Lastly, we need more volunteers for Tip of the Month.  Please let me know if you’d be willing to do one of these for us.