March 2009 Newsletter

Next Meeting March 21, 2009
10 AM - 4 PM (more or less)
Email goes to: spinner@serendipityspinners.org

February in a Nutshell

by Sue Toorans

It was another day of going batty. We still had plenty of wool dyed some very lovely colors to convert into batts for our booth at Stitches. More batts were made.

Marcia brought some once-carded baths ready to mix. Sharolene and Lotus and others brought carders. There were five carders ready for use by 11 am. Jocelyn arrived with the rest of the fiber around 11:30 and the carding began in earnest.

Our president, Kimberly led the meeting.

The batty rainbow

Old Business

Chris J. - A few years ago Serendipity had a raffle for a quilt. Marge won, but we've never managed to get it to her. We're doing the raffle again. Each of the squares was done by students in bicentennial style. Nancy's group paid for assembly and used it to raffle as a fund raiser. Some of that money went to purchase the fruit picker sheds on the museum grounds.

It was proposed that there be a picture in newsletter of the quilt. (That would be *THIS* quilt.) If you are interested in participating in raffle (past or present member), say so. We'll raffle it off among the interested. The raffle is open to anyone on our mailing list. In order to claim the quilt, the winner must have a written thank you note ready. Nancy Durham will have the contact information of whom to thank. Send email to the spinner@serendipityspinners.org if you would like your name in the raffle to be held at the March meeting.

The raffle quilt

An example of the quilting

Treasurer's Report

We have a hair over $1000. Lotus also brought her list of who has paid dues.

New Business

Sue T. brought the Serendipity business cards for stitches. Asked for and was granted the funds for one box of card stock and ink.

As a reminder . . . There are fliers ready to print on our web site. Please do print some if you are going somewhere and you'd like to have some to distribute.

Sue is loaning our guild's 4 aprons (4 more at Sue's house) for use at Stitches. There seems to be interest in individuals owning their own copy of this apron. Let Sue know if you are one of those interested.

Stitches

We checked to see if Jocelyn needed anything. She asked for skeins, swatches or small finished projects to pin onto the cloth backdrop of the booth. She reminded us that the $5 is a suggested (not required) donation. It was noted that Sharpies are good for marking an arrow on CD's to show which way to spin singles. Jocelyn would make sure there was a Sharpie in the booth.

Having been to Stitches and spent a shift in our booth, I think we looked good and were well received, as normal. While we were there, Frank had a long interview (on camera!) with the official press guys from Stitches.

CD drop spindle

Announcements

Glenna Harris has received a stash. They are willing to share it with us. The announcement will be sent as a separate flier. Watch your mail boxes for it.

There are a couple of spinning days coming up.

Spinning at Hidden Villa

Sunday March 22, 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Ask Marcia if you have questions.

Spinning at the Winery

June 6, 2009, 10 am - 4 pm
Retzlaff Winery
1356 S. Livermore Ave., Livermore [just past City Hall and the Police Station]

This is the twelfth year that Will & Kate Taylor will be hosting this great day of spinning on the lawn at Retzlaff Winery. As always, there will be a potluck lunch, so bring a dish and enjoy a fun day with fellow fiber fanatics. To show your appreciation to the winery, please buy your beverages from them.

This year’s vendors will include:

Sandy's fleeces of Hayshed Basin Ranch
Sue Reuser with cormo fleeces
Janet Heppler of Nebo Rock Ranch
Morgaine Wilder of Carolina Homespun
Black Diamond Alpacas
Bev Fleming of "Ewe & Me Too"
Jill Gallagher of Hollyhock Hollow with pygora goats
Barbara Fiorica with mohair and cashmere
Rencon Ranch, Conrad and Renee with shetland sheep
Morro Fleece Works to clean and card your fleeces
Pan’s Garden Yarns - unusual and inventive roving and yarns

Show 'n Tell

Kimberly: lost her end on a bobbin and wanted help. Several suggestions were made; brushing against the direction of spin with a toothbrush can, sometimes, work. Putting the bobbin back on the wheel and spinning it backwards as fast as you can sometimes works. If all else fails, break the yarn and start unreeling it, most of the time, no more than four breaks are required.

Kimberly's bobbin with a lost end

Chris S.: showed a lovely green crochet market bag she had made. She is working on a very bright yellow, orange, red project.

	Market bag
	Very bright project

Chris J.: is working on an Alice Starmore sweater in purple. She is also working on a Lace shawl in an angora/silk yarn that she had custom dyed by Treenway to a pink/lilac for only a little extra.

	Detail of purple Alice Starmore sweater
	Detail of Lace shawl in angora/silk

Sue: is still working on a pair of socks. In the works, but not shown is a basket made from coiled telephone wire and fishing line. I'm collecting the fortunes from fortune cookies. Please save them for me.

Ginger: is busy at work and has gotten almost nothing else done. She did show a pair of newly finished socks and one sock in progress.

Ginger's socks

Marcia: has been working on a genealogy project on the web. Tried a woven shibori project. This is a weave that has some long threads that get pulled to gather in the fabric prior to dying it. In future, the little group will try indigo dying of the shibori weaving. After the dying is done, the gathering threads are pulled out to reveal the white/light on dark design.

Jocelyn: has gone from zero to four circular sock knitting machines. Her newest one (at the time of the meeting) is from New Zealand Auto Knitter will be custom-painted pink. I trust no one is surprised at the color. So far, she has been making plain tubes and ribbed tubes but no socks, yet.

	A picture of the sock machines
	Jocelyn carding
	Jocelyn's daughter

Sharolene: brought some woven towels in flake cotton that were made from a kit. She will give them away since she can't bear to use her precious weavings.

	The towel.
	A closer look at the towel.
	Sharolene carding

Aviva: has taken a class on machine knitting. The class project was a basic sweater. She had decided that machines are tremendously easy to use within their limitations and very useful for large areas of boring knitting. She is also knitting the edge around the outside of a lace project.

	Machine knit sweater
	Hand knit edge of lace project

Lotus: showed off a little, tiny, knitted sweater made with a very, very fine 2-ply yarn that Frank had. She says that this is the first whole sweater she has knitted in years.

Little, tiny, knitted sweater

My apologies to the rest of these people. My camera was full and I didn't get any pictures.

Jenna: showed a lovely pink/purple/magenta lace shawl she has knitted.

Tina : displayed a knitted then felted lilac hat.

Carol: arrived with her drum carder just in time to join in the carding frenzy.

And that's February in a nutshell.

If you have news or pictures of interest to the group please send it to spinner@serendipityspinners.org