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by Anna Lorton The February meeting started and there was a winter storm on its way! Cozy in our pajamas we met over zoom. The meeting was opened by our distinguished Chair Kimberly. If you are not a member but feel like you get something from our meetings, please consider joining. We do have costs to run our guild and it is nice to know that we can continue to provide for our community. If you cannot afford to become a member at this time, we do have scholarship memberships; email us at info@puddletownknittersguild.com if you are interested, no questions asked. If you would like to purchase a gift membership for a friend or donate to the scholarship fund, email us, we can certainly also do that! Thank you! Winter Warmth for Rose Haven Day Shelter: knit something to keep someone warm for our 2021 charity knitting drive. Please use yarn that can go through the washer and dryer. There is yarn available for charity knitting; contact us and we will get it to you. Our Jennifer Berg event is coming up! Colorwork classes over zoom! Registration will be in your email soon. Member Tips with Anna: Knitting with your eyes closed! (or at least not looking at your knitting). You can do it! All it takes is a little practice and Anna talked about why, what, and how you would start doing this. Why? Maybe you like those Swedish mystery television shows and have to put down your knitting to read the subtitles, maybe you want to impress your friends. Whatever the reason you CAN do it. The first thing to consider is WHAT you are knitting. Don't try to do intense colorwork, any lace, or cables. Shoot for plain knitting, plain purling, or ribbing. How to start: start by closing your eyes for a little longer than a blink. Then longer and longer stretches. Choose a particular part of the stitch to close them and then peek. Just keep practicing and soon you too can take your knitting to the movie theater (when they open up again). Tip: explosions are good excuses to pick up stitches you may have dropped; at the opera you may choose to just fix your mistakes later (there are not many explosions at the opera). Next were some book recommendations from Anna and others: The Vampire Knitting Club by Nancy Warren recommended by Kimberly Cast On, Bind Off by Leslie Ann Bestor recommended by Julie Knitting Rules by SPM recommended by Anna The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns by Ann Budd recommended by Anna The Principles of Knitting by June Hemmons Hiatt recommended by Anna Next Month (March), we will be talking about yarn organization! Sharon introduced our February speakers: Kristine Vejar and Adrienne Rodriguez, the authors of the book Journeys in Natural Dyeing. Kristine and Adrienne came to our meeting from their shop, A Verb for Keeping Warm, in Oakland, California. Adrienne started with a land acknowledgment before she and Kristine showed us the production dye studio, educational dye garden, and retail space. Kristine talked about their journey to understand both the natural fibers and dyes and where they originate from. It's not as simple to use natural dyes and get a rainbow of colors, especially since the processes are often passed from generation to generation and not written down. But it is possible and Kristine and Adrienne have been working on books to explain what they discovered in order to make natural dyeing more accessible. If you want to go natural, you can get natural dyeing extracts, which are highly concentrated powders, as well as using the plants themselves. Kristine explained what colors various plants can create and the methods that they used to dye several fibers, as well as discussing how in different regions, different plant life can be used. They showed us glorious pictures from their latest book and the plethora of colors you can get with only natural dyes, as well as techniques to alter colors from the same dye source. The presentation ended with a variety of questions, from simple to complex. We are thrilled that they came and shared so much knowledge with our guild. We ended the meeting with show and tell and the raffle. Our knitters have been productive and have created some beautiful things. It will be great to see you next month for Jennifer Berg!!!!
Want to watch the full meeting? Click here.
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