Showing posts with label hand crafts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hand crafts. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Alpaca's R Us!

Exciting news! This past weekend saw the marking of my parents' 40th Anniversary! So to commemorate the occasion my Dad decided to buy an Alpaca for my Mom's anniversary present. We are so very excited! Fibre at our fingertips, literally! Al the Alpaca (no said my parents were very creative with the naming of beasts) is quite happy in his new and, I have it on good authority, that he's eagre to share his warm and wooly coat with the knitter in our family (okay this is mostly me although others have also given it a go).

Although the picture above is not our Al, it is a great one to show the warm and wooly content of their fibre. I am so excited about this new member of our family. However, I shall have to wait patiently until next spring when he will be ready to sheer and then a little while longer while the fibre is cleaned and spun and ready to knit up into some wonderful creation. It is touted as being one of the warmest, softest and silkiest fibres known to knitters. Added bonus: they are just so darn CUTE!

Anyone out there who has any experience with Alpaca fibre, drop me a line. I am eager to learn all I can about the care of Alpacas, processing of their fibre and knitting with the fine yarn produced. I'm looking forward to learning all there is to know about this member of the camelid family and maybe writing it up into an intriguing article some day.

Happy knitting!

Monday, September 24, 2007

Meeting of the Needles (Sept. 23, 2007)

The meeting of the needles came together as another success! We knitted and chatted (oh yes and our resident beader...well...beaded). We welcomed another new member of our group and enjoyed the return of several long standing and appreciated regulars.

The needles clicked with renowned purpose as Gale aided Pam with her attempts at beginning a scarf. Pam has been recruited by our beader, Michelle, and brought with her much enthusiasm and dedication as she perilously began to cast on a garter stitch scarf. This may not seem like a feat of enormity to those who have a long knitting career, but to Pam it was a feat of excellence. After a few false starts and an eventual success, Pam's scarf is well on its way to completion. She even noted that she learned more in the 2 hours she spent with us than she did at a $25 class from Michael's and all it cost her was the price of a yummy coffee from McKenzie Coles!

My own new knitter, Jeanette, cast on and made some excellent progress on her project of choice - Mousy Mittens. These have been a regular in her winter world since she was 5 years old and now that she is 15 I'm prepared to pass the torch to her and have her making her own. Since mittens are the forgotten soles of Winterland, she has consistently lost one or two of them per year. I'm sure if we found a way to permeate the black hole of mittens, we'd find enough lost mitts there to supply a third world full of children with the warm woolies. Jeanette's dedication to the craft brought the mitten just past the cast on stage of the thumb gusset and, by next week, she hopes to complete the thumb and be well into the hand construction.

Scarves and mittens are great projects to learn several techniques such as cast on, knit stitch, pearl stitch (and their combination into the stockinette stitch), increasing and basic construction techniques. Good luck to both Jeanette and Pam as they discover the journey through the Land of Knitting. Just one bit of advice...REMEMBER: Knitting is fun and relaxing!!!

Jan returned to our group with socks in tow. She's an expert sock knitter and enjoys each one of the approximate 20,000 stitches that build to create a warm wooly for the tootsies. Gale expertly worked away at creating warmth and love for a friend's impending birth of twins. Bonnie continued constructing a cable and bobble toque and Michelle touted her pleasure at seeing several of her belly dance costumes worn and fashioned.

Although we did not find resolution to the "Gauge versus Tension" debate, we did decide that we would enjoy creating warm woolies for less fortunate children of Saskatoon and intend to begin creating them with the supplies that were so kindly donated by other residents of our fair city. A big thank you to all who donated their unwanted yarns!!!

Thanks to all for joining in our numbers as they are growing. Thanks and welcome to the new knitters for their uniqueness, enthusiasm and laughter. Remember to continue to recruit...we are still in need of male representation (I know they are out there, we just have to find them!).

Until next week my knitterly cohorts...

September 30, 2007
2 pm
McKenzie Coles Coffee
Corner of Gray Ave and Central Ave, Saskatoon, SK


Keep those needles clicking!

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Calling all Stitchers!!!!




A new group has appeared...The Saskatoon Knitting Circle! Come and
join us for a stitchin' good time.

This is the URL http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SaskatoonKnittingCircle

This is the e-mail SaskatoonKnittingCircle@yahoogroups.com

Join up, pass the info on to friends who are interested in good
company and great stitching.

We meet regularly and always welcome new stitchers, experienced queens
of the thread and those who want to learn. If it can be done with a
needle and thread mixed with love and devotion then it will be there!



alt="Click here to join SaskatoonKnittingCircle">
Click to join SaskatoonKnittingCircle