The Yarn Doctor was in business at 6:30 p.m., right after the Board meeting and before the general meeting. If you've got a project or a pattern that's making you tear your hair out or aren't sure how to perform an instruction, you're welcome to bring your problem to the Yarn Doctor. There's always at least one person there willing to help you sort out the snarls and make things clear so you can knit on.
The program at the February 13th Bay Lakes Knitting Guild meeting was Tracy Schuh from Interlacements Yarns in Abrams who showed us what's new for 2014. Tracy had full a table of luscious yarns in dreamy colors that will be in yarn shops in spring. We asked lots of questions about how she got into the yarn dyeing business and the process she uses. Tracy is friendly and fun to talk to about yarn and dyeing--and weaving and spinning--she does it all! You should have seen the scarf she had woven; it nearly slid into many knitting bags as it made its way around the table. She even invited the Guild to arrange a "dye day" field trip to her place once the weather warms up so we can play with dye outside and not make too big a mess.
She couldn't sell us even one skein of that yummy yarn because many of her yarn shop-type customers haven't seen them and it wouldn't be fair. That made sense. Good thing she had a big tote of what she called "specials" that we could purchase. Oh, there were so many pretties in that bag--lace weights, sport weights, worsteds--and the colors, oh the colors, a few solids but most were variegates in deep, rich colors. *sigh* It was hard to control but I managed to limit myself to three skeins of Sweet Feet sport weight blend of merino and silk. To. Die. For. Thanks a million, Tracy!
Next month's program will be Tabletop Techniques. Three of the members will each teach a technique and the rest of the group will rotate between them. Be sure to read through the Newsletter to see what supplies you need to bring and if you need to knit a swatch. I'll post the "homework" here on the blog too as soon as the newsletter arrives. Don't miss out on the chance to learn something new or get a refresher of a technique you already know. I love learning new things, don't you?
P.S. We still collect baby/preemie hats that we donate to the local hospitals, there's always a market for kids' hats and mittens for the local elementary schools, and Mitch put out a call for chemo hats for the oncology clinic at the new VA Clinic here in town. If you've got some spare acrylic yarn, how about whipping up a hat and bringing it to the next meeting? If you don't have any spare acrylic yarn, BLKG has bins of it for you to choose from. Vicki's going to try to have some at the next meeting; it's yours for the taking for charity knitting. I made a Resolution to make three chemo hats per month in 2014, focusing on making them for men. Anybody want to join me? It feels good. Remember a whole lot of small efforts add up to big results.
