The meeting started with a list of the upcoming yarn events. These are also listed on our web site http://www.millstreamknitting.com At the top click on the EVENTS tab to see the event list and a link to take you to each of the events web sites.
Rose city yarn crawl March 1- 4, Columbia Gorge Fiber Festival April 20 – 24, Sheep to Shawl May 12, Black Sheep June 22- 24, and Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival September 22 & 23
Annie of Calvin’s Hats came to tell us about her charity. She is asking us to help by knitting very tiny hats. Calvin’s Hats, is offering to grieving parents, a gift which can bring a small amount of comfort and peace… a hat tiny enough to fit right on their precious child’s head and something to hold on to when their child is no longer here. Our wish is for these hats to bring a small amount of healing.” These go to some who has a baby born too early or a miscarriage. The web site is www.calvinshats.com
Venita Gralow was our speaker. She has written a pattern for the traditional Faroese Shawl. She brought not only her Faroese shawls but many others to show us and tell us her tips on making these and how to choose yarns for your shawl.
Venita showed us some books and said she would send me a list of others she has used and found helpful. I will forward that info when I receive it. The one book everyone seemed to like was Folk Shawls by Cheryl Oberle. That book has two Faroese type shawls in it with easy to follow instructions.
Venita also talked about the Faroese Islands where these shawls originated and how they actually would make an outside shawl with lace pattern and then a white one with out lace to place behind and join the two together. It is cold there so the double thickness worked well there.
She talked about the sections of the shawl and how you can change it to be just what you want after you understand the make-up of the shawl. The edge stitches, the side sections and the center panel. She advised not to get too worried about one side having more stitches then the other, don’t tare rows out just decrease when notice to get back on track and it will all work out in the end. Best to use sock and lace weight yarns, works great to find a vendor that dyes different weights in same colorway.
Usually need two skeins of variegated sock yarn and one solid that pulls one of the colors out of your other yarn. Then add a little fuzzy, sparkle or pizazz of some kind too. Some of the yarns she likes to use are Handmaiden camel/silk blend, Kid Silk Haze, Superior (70% Cashmere & 30% silk). She showed us a square shawl from Victorian Lace Today by Jane Sowerby that took 3 skeins of the Superior yarn. The one shawl that was so very soft and was all one color (variegated greenish) was made from Claudia’s Hand Painted Silk – one skein $49.00 aprox., this was an Estonian pattern.
MARCH meeting will be a lesson on short rows. Short Rows are used to create dimensional knitting – it can add either curves or depth to flat knitting. This is sometimes used in making a curve in a shawl or scarf or shaping shoulders on sweaters or to increase the bust of a sweater. See these web sites for more info http://knotions.com/techniques/short_rows/how_to_knit_short_rows.aspx and http://techknitting.blogspot.com/2009/10/basic-short-rows-theory-and-method.html
http://techknitting.blogspot.com/
April meeting will be Twist Collective, an online magazine where designers show you there newest patterns Marnie MacLean will be bringing the whole spring line up of knitted gaments for us to do a fashion show. We will need some volunteers to model the pieces.
May meeting – Sheep to Shawl event at the Mill is this same day so we will be knitting to show our craft to the people who visit that day.
June meeting – We have not gotten final confirmation yet but hope to have Judy Becker teach us the Judy’s magic cast on.
Salem Millstream Knitting Guild 