Sorry about the hiatus...

There has been a serious lack of monthly entries (April and May...what?), and Monica will take all of the blame for that. She has been considerably busier with her day job and has found very little extra time in the evenings to keep up.

But, she is promising to make a better effort, and without further ado...

April was the Destash fundraiser, where members brought in their unwanted stash, perused the stash of others and purchased some great yarn for very reasonable rates. All of the proceeds went to the YWCA Cross Roads Shelter for Women, and we raised over $80!

May was Bring a Friend night. In the hopes of bringing up our dwindling numbers, we invited members to bring a friend to Kniterary. We wanted to bring some new faces out, spread the love of knitting and maybe teach those faces a new skill. The award to most friends dragged brought to Kniterary goes to Mary Charles who introduced a veritable baseball team to our midst!

June will be a first for Kniterary. Teaching Kids to Knit will be a rowdy night of fun knitting activities. Not to worry, though...these activities will be fun for everyone, not just the youngest members. We will have finger knitting, team and solo arm knitting, loom knitting and more. We are hoping that some of our youngest members will help us, but we really want to see some new young faces out. School ends on June 26th, so Monday the 29th is not a school night...no excuses for not coming out for this evening!

And on that note, we should address a major problem with our dwindling numbers. Over the last few years (we have been meeting since November 2009!), we have seen nights when there has been as few as six or seven people, and as many as fifty-five. But recently, our numbers have been holding steady at 20ish, give or take, and we'd like to see more people filling up those chairs. We are going to take a short break for the summer, rather than hosting movie nights, to concentrate on getting the word out about Kniterary Nights and hopefully drum up more interest. Get the word out and encourage people to come out....tell them how much fun it is, tell them how important a skill it is, just tell them to come out. We will see you again in September, when we will plan another great night; suggestions for topics are very welcome. Just comment on the blog, or email Monica or Kelly with ideas. Keep checking back as we will update our Upcoming Nights page with more information.

March 2015 - meeting notes

Knitting Olympics: A Case of Serious Hand Puns!
We hosted another great night at the Kniterary Nights last night. We think we may have scared a number of members away with thoughts of an evening spent in competition, but all who turned out had a blast!

The first event was Speed Knitting. Each contestant was instructed to cast-on 20 stitches, then to knit a single row. Then with the timer armed for one minute, we raced to complete a row...with Jenn finishing first handily!

The second event was Blind Knitting. Rather than use blindfolds, we trusted the honour and integrity of everyone (as well as Kelly's referring abilities) and simply closed our eyes. Using the same piece from the first event, we all tried to blindly complete another row, which is far more difficult than it sounds! But again, Jenn beat us all hands-down!

Continuing, yet again, with the same piece of knitting, we turned the blind knitting up a notch and placed our hands behind our backs to try Derriere Tricoter, not only without our eyes, but also with contorted arms. Not a single person disconnected their shoulder joints, but Jenn seemed to be an old hand at these amazing games!

For our fourth, and final event, we paired up and tried our hands at Tandem Knitting. With one person holding the left needle and their partner holding the right needle, our pairs tried to speed their way to a finished row. Partners who both knit in the same style (Continental or English) may have thought they had the upper-hand, but everyone found their own rhythm. True to form...Jenn clearly showed us that in her case the left hand really DOES know what the right hand is doing!

We had some great prizes, including a Bee Knitting Nancy, lots of yarn, a selection of chocolate and treats. A huge thank you to two local businesses who generously donated gift certificates for our competition. First, the UK Shoppe in the Market Plaza (a great selection of UK imported foods and gifts....check them out before their Easter stock is gone!), and from By the Bridge on Water Street (a fantastic lunch restaurant specializing in healthy and delicious sandwiches, soups and salads!). 

Next Month
After a quick discussion, Kelly and Monica decided that in the spirit of spring cleaning, the Kniterary Society would host a destash party. Clean out your closets, bins, baskets and bags of stash, decide with which yarns you are willing to part. We will buy and sell yarn at a $1 per ball or skein...all proceeds from the evening will go to CrossRoads Shelter in Peterborough.

CrossRoads is a shelter run by the YWCA that helps women and children in emergency situations. The Elegant Spider knitting group, and the Kniterary Society have contributed to this worthwhile cause in the past, and we encourage you to check out their website for more information on donating to their cause. You can give in many ways (money, time, sponsoring a family and more), but we particularly like their Wish List which is a list of practical items of which they are always in need.

World Wide Knit in Public Day
For ten years, knitters around the world have come out of their living rooms in June in order to spread the word and love of knitting to those in public spaces. In Peterborough, we have participated each year by knitting in many places around the downtown core during World Wide Knit in Public Week. We have knit on the benches of Hunter Street, in the shade of trees in Del Crary Park, and even in the hideaway space of Millennium Park.

This year, the organization has narrowed the focus to one day, Saturday June 13, although they encourage everyone to keep up the celebration for ten days to honour this anniversary. In Peterborough, we wanted to find a central location that still offered us high visibility, so that we could share our passion with as many passersby as possible. Management at Peterborough Square has kindly agreed to let us loiter lounge on their space, so we'll be setting up lawn chairs at the rear entrance to the mall located at the corner of Water and Charlotte...maybe even the front entrance at the corner of George and Simcoe, if our numbers swell enough. See you there!

February 2015 - meeting notes

Denise Powell - Where Do You Get Your Inspiration ?

It’s true - knitters never fear the cold!

Despite the frigid temperatures we had a number of our steadfast knitters come out last night and they, in turn, were rewarded with an inspiring presentation by Denise Powell. She shared with us her Interpretations designs and described how and from where she draws her ideas and creative imaginings.

She explained her long love affair of traditional textiles, and both historic and cultural clothing from around the world.  She brought a wonderful selection from her Interpretations design line including a hip-length kimono with a lovely cherry blossom embellishment some Egyptian jewellery inspired knit collars, an exquisite and detailed homage to an Edwardian ladies jacket and an African inspired tunic and many many more.

 

 

 

She explained her creative process and how she became a designer and described the process in which one creates a design and gets it published. We thank her for answering all our questions. The Peterborough Public Library does have a subscription to the magazine that Denise mentioned last night;  A Needle Pulling Thread, but we only have two issues thus far.

 

We really enjoyed her talk and she left us with a challenge to find our own inspirations however and wherever we may find them. If you can dream of a rose teapot cover than why can't you make one?

 

Also a special thank you to the lovely one (you know who you are) that shared some candy with the group, I promise will try to bring the remainder of them to next months meeting.

NEXT MONTH
We are so excited to ramp up for the Knitting games, which will feature the following competitions:

• The Two Row Dash - Speed Knitting
• Derriere Tricoter - Behind-the-Back Knitting
• Blind Needles - Knitting Blindfolded
• Tandem Knitting - Knitting with a friend...one hand each!

Get training and we look forward to some great fun!

January 2015 - meeting notes

The first Kniterary of 2015 saw about 20 Kniterary members brave the extreme cold for another great night.

The Return of Kelly

Our fearless leader has returned and none too late! Although Monica enjoyed organizing our evenings in Kelly's stead, she is very glad to share the pain joys of Kniterary with Kelly, once again.

Kelly and Monica have also started planning this year and have come up with some fun ideas for 2015, including:

February - Denise Powell will talk about Inspiration and Creativity: Where Do You Get Your Inspiration?

March - Knitting Olympics, with competitions in Speed Knitting, Behind the Back Knitting, Tandem Knitting and Blind Knitting. We may even have prizes?!

July & August - as always we will be enjoying some movies; some suggestions include

We also have Veronica in talks with Kelly about doing a third evening of Knits that Fit. Veronica has hosted some incredibly informative and interesting evenings on achieving perfect fit in your knitting. Veronica's first evening talked about altering patterns to get a truly flattering and effective fit. The second evening she demonstrated how and where to take your own measurements. This third evening will be even more discussion of altering patterns for your perfect fit, and we look forward to it immensely.

Our Gallery

One of the pages that we would love to get filled is our Gallery page. We would love to feature photos of members projects. Don't feel like they have to be masterpieces. We want to feature the variety of crafts that our members enjoy...knitting, crocheting, spinning, embroidery, or weaving! We may be called 'Knit'erary, but we want to recognize all of the crafting that our members do!

Knitting Help

Last night at Kniterary, a member was starting her first lace project and had a few questions. The first issue was how to do a provisional caston. This caston provides you with a row of live stitches that are held while you continue with your knitting, until they picked up and used within the pattern. They are especially useful in symmetrical shawls or scarves, sleeves or hems, and even on button bands. In this particular pattern, they were to be used in a garter tab to start a shawl, and we decided to forgo the provisional caston because it would only be using 3 stitches and would not alter the look of the pattern at all.

If we were to have used it, here are a couple of great videos to help you create this very useful caston.

Provisional Cast On with waste yarn

Provisional Cast On with a crochet hook

She also wanted help reading the charts in her pattern and there are some great articles out there, including this one from Knitty.com.

Please feel free to send us any crafting questions you might have, and we will answer them on our next Kniterary Night, as well as writing up any help we provide here on the blog.

Vintage Knitting

Without belabouring the entire presentation, for anyone who would like to look through the presentation again, here is the PowerPoint.

And here are the presentation slide notes.

You can also view the handout (with Google instructions, and link list).

 

December 2014 - meeting notes

We had a quiet afternoon of knitting, enjoyed our cookies and tea

We look forward to a great new year and can't wait for Kelly to return to our midst!

Check out the Upcoming Nights page to see what we have in store.

As always, feel free to contact us if you have any projects you'd like to share, if you have any ideas for upcoming nights, or if you have any questions that you'd like answered at the next Kniterary meeting, or even here on the blog.