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).