Our September meeting is only two weeks from tomorrow!! Where did the summer go?

The September meeting is going to cover a lot of territory. September is the beginning of the membership year. Dues will be paid ($15.00 annually), the nominating committee will present the slate of candidates and hopefully elections will take place.

Since it is the beginning of our membership year, bring a friend!

The program for the evening will be Socks! I know that many of the members are expert sock knitters, and I have contact a few of them so that we can get a panel experts! If you are a sock knitter, bring a pair of socks that you have knit. I will bring several books of sock knitting.

Ever wondered if you could benefit from a knitting machine? Or are you just curious about how a knitting machine works? Several of our members have been taking machine lessons from Julia Esterling. We will have our machines at the meeting and you will be able to make a hat for Soin Hospital (Hopefully) during the course of the meeting.

And don’t forget the silent auction will be ongoing!

March 4 MEETING
Preparation
choose a pattern for a felted project and knit it up. It will be “HUGE” (see the photos)

March 4th Miami Valley Knitting Guild Meeting 7pm at Beavercreek Church of the Nazarene. Topic: Felting in Three Ways Prep: Knit and item to be felted (suggestions: Cup cozy, beverage can cozy, cloche, hot pad) We will be felting the items at the meeting so, please, nothing huge!!!!

We will work on one piece — the piece you knit. As a body we will make one wet felted piece that we can cut up into little pieces that can be needle felted onto the piece that you brought with you — So, you knit a cup cozy at home and bring that to felt. In the mean time we make a piece of pink or green felt via wet felting. We cut a flower out of the pink felt and you needle felt that to your cup cozy.

Our meeting is coming upon us fast because we have less than 2 weeks before we come together so please fit this project into your other “work?”

More information coming, but for now…… have fun! and knit loosely and make sure to use 100% wool — alpaca, sheep, camel, yak ……. NO ACRYLIC!! NO SUPERWASH!!! NO WHITE!!! None of those felt because there are no barbs on the shaft of the wool. We can talk more about it — just stay away from them as you knit your item.

It’s time! We haven’t taken much time to show off our creations! So, this month you are invited to bring your top (or bottom, de-pending on your sense of humor) THREE knit items to show off. You might want comments to help you decide about your fair posting or you might just want to show off what you wore to your own or someone else’s wedding. It’s up to you — just no more than 3 pieces, please!

We will also brain storm about future meetings so…. What would you like to :
Do?????
See ?????
Buy ?????

Please bring with you a circular needle in a size that you would use to knit the worsted weight yarn, that you will also bring with you. This will be so that you can try to do what is variously called, Lever Knitting or Catholic Knitting or Irish Knitting. It will be best if the yarn is NOT grabby and that your needle IS slick. If you have done this method of knitting before you might be used to using long, straight needles — and indeed you may want to try it that way. I find that the curve of the circular needle helps with the “bounce” needed to drive the needle to the yarn. We will just be knitting a trial swatch, so don’t bring “important” yarn with you — a leftover ball will be good enough.

We will also have order forms for our Guild branded blouses and polo shirts, our new tape measures and iron on decals (appropriate for use on any WHITE fabric), at the meeting. Payment may be made by check (payment must be made when you order your shirt — range is $25-$35 depending on style and size xs-5XL)

I look forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday!
Remember to bring your Show and Tell!

This meeting will try to put a corral around all of your knitting “stuff!” We all have it! Bags to house our projects; totes to hold our stash; boxes and tubes and organizers for our notions; binders and computer files set up to be able to have our patterns ready to go and then a sleeve or a magnetic board to put the pattern on when it’s actually being used; some system for housing our needles; a place for the swift and ball winder ……………..
How big is your house and how big does it need to be? This will be an opportunity for us all to share what we have found to work the best for us. So, please plan to come and bring with you a list of the most important items in your organizational system — what it is, where you got it, how much we can plan on it costing us to replicate…… A listing will be made of all the ideas and information that we compile and it will be
posted on MVKG.org for anyone who wants to be able to find the collected data again! I think that this could be a very important meeting, but it is only going to be as good as what we can share with each other. Please take some time to gather your list before the meeting and bring examples of the items if you can manage it so that we can all see, and touch as many as possible in one room in one hour.

Preparation for May 1 Meeting

It occurred to me at 3:00 this morning — in a nightmare of sorts — that I needed to make tomorrow evening’s meeting 1) something that did not require each of us to rent a U-Haul truck and 2) something that we can share with others — now and into the future. Therefore — read carefully, please!
If you have pictures of your stash or your storage solution or anything else that you would like to share at this meeting, please send me the .jpg file so that I can drop you into alphabetical order in the slide show. If you have bag after bag after bag that you are planning to bring in with you — you might want to reconsider and take a snap with your camera and send them to revpamm(at)gmail.com (you will have to fix that email address so that your files will actually come to me!
We will deal mainly with your hand knitting “stuff” — but that’s not where it ends for most of us — we have spinning supplies and equipment, and machine knitting cones of yarn and machines, weights and hooks, crochet hooks, beading supplies and woodworking tools …. get pictures of that stuff too and if there is time we will venture that way tomorrow evening……….. if not……….. we will have the pictures with contact information in the file!

WE WILL BE MEETING!  The parking lot is clear.  See you at 7pm!

March 6th meeting of the Miami Valley Knitting Guild will feature Lisa Loftin, a member of our guild and a librarian with the Dayton Metro Library system.  Lisa will talk about what books she considers “must haves” for every knitter. Please bring any books that you think should be included. A list of the books Lisa discusses will be provided and we will put a complied bibliography up on our website following the meeting.

So, what will you choose to bring?  Will it be The Principles of Knitting by June Hemmons Hiatt or Cast On, Bind Off: 54 Step-by-Step Methods; Find the perfect start and finish for every knitting project by Leslie Ann Bestor?  Or will you bring all of Ann Budd’s books that you have in your library and let it go at that?

Another way to look at the question might be to ask, what’s available to me on my e-reader and are essential.  (I’m currently carrying around Nancy Marchant’s Brioche Knitting on my Kindle and love that it’s there since the corners on my paperback are starting to look like the book is 17 years old!)  What’s worth your money to have only in electronic form?

One final way for me to look at this question is: what are the apps that I want to pay money for on my iPad or Android Tablet?  Many of the Apps for knitters these days are books in a more accessible form.  Do you like The Knitter’s Companion Deluxe Edition w/DVD by Vicki Square better as a book or as an App?

I’m looking forward to the conversation (and I’m holding off buying any more books — I sincerely believe that I have more of a book problem than I do yarn problem – until after the meeting.

Pam Moffat

Remember:  Feb 6th at 7pm at Sycamore Hospital in Miamisburg, OH

BRIOCHE KNIT STITCH

Bring yarn and needles. Worsted weight yarn or DK yarn would be best…please stash dive for this. It really isn’t necessary to purchase any yarn as you will only need enough to learn the stitch. The size of needle is up to you. I am using DK yarn with size 4 needles. If you are bringing worsted weight yarn, size 6 needles would work…or size 7 or size 5.
To get the most out of the instructional session, there is just a little pre-work. If you don’t have time to do this before the meeting, no problem.

1. Using your choice of yarn, cast on 24 stitches using any method of cast on.
2. Row 1: K2 then(K1P1) 9 times. Then K3.
3. Row 2: K2 then (P1K1) 9 times. P1 then K2
4. Repeat these two rows until you have about one inch of knitted ribbing.
   Please don’t put too much thinking into this: basically, you will have a K1P1 ribbing, with a 2-stitch garter stitch edging.