April 2010 Newsletter

Next Meeting April 17, 2010
10 AM - 4 PM (more or less)
Email goes to: spinner@serendipityspinners.org

March Nutshell

by Sue, Ginger and Frank

In February, we decided that we wanted to do mystery batts for ourselves. Or, at least, Lotus made the request. So last month's newsletter announced mystery batts for March, please bring fiber and drum carders. No one headed the call. There was no fiber. There were no drum carders. The mystery batts didn't happen. The day was not a total loss.

We had a larger turn out than we have had of late and the weather was lovely.

Treasurer's Report

$1,627.16 at end of February.

Old Business

Fire House

The Firehouse is booked on the third Saturday of December this year and next. We already agreed to rent it for $300. Now our choices were to keep our normal meeting day and find another location or change the date to the second Saturday and keep the Firehouse. We voted to change our meeting to the second Saturday.

Classes

We had enough of a quorum to vote on the Nancy Roberts workshop. There was little to no interest in having her come teach at the prices she charges for the topic presented. Thank you, Aviva for researching this. There will be an opportunity to take the same or similar course at CNCH.

Stitches

There were 2,200 registered students. Another 12,000 paid to enter the marketplace. There were over 250 vendors. We netted $260 from our CD spindle booth. This covers the booth cost. Just. It was about a third of what we made last year. Last year we were in sponsor aisle. This year we had asked to be near fiber. We voted to go back to the sponsor aisle for next year.

CNCH

Advertisements will come out on radio (KGO).

New Business

Quilt Show

Niles Canyon (in Fremont) is having a Quilt Show on Sunday, May 16th. It is in conjunction with their annual Wildflower Art & Garden Show. They would love to have some spinners join them. The web page is www.niles.org. The contact person appears to be Diana Liles (510) 792-6567.

Friends of Deer Hollow Farm

Friends of Deer Hollow Farm (in Mountain View) are asking for support. They will be closing on July 1st due to lack of funds without it. They'd love to have spinners come and spin. Their preferred days for spinners to volunteer happen to be our next two meeting days. They could use money, too. Teaching kids is what they do. Do we want to organize a spin-in? Lotus tells us that it is about a half mile walk from parking to where we might spin. By a narrow majority, we voted to transfer Heifer fund allocation (not yet sent) to Deer Hollow this once.

Donated Fiber to CNCH

We have some old carded fiber left over from Stitches, some from previous years. We voted to give it to the spinning corral at CNCH.

Show 'n Tell

Christine: brought her father-in-law. She hasn't been here in 16 years. She's looking for something to spin for Niles. She's looking for someone to spin (plastic) Easter grass. Did it once and knitted it.

Christine and her father-in-law

Natasha: (new member) is a dog groomer and came to learn to spin. We started her out on a CD drop spindle and then progressed her to her own wheel. By the end of the meeting she was spinning as though she was born to it.

Drop spindling

Spinning on a wheel

Jocelyn: is knitting a pink (what a surprise!) sock. She had fun at Stitches West.

Pink Sock.

Tina: smashed her wrist in Oct (and has a very impressive scar to show for it). She has been doing physical therapy since then. She's working on scarf. Her kids are growing so big. I don't think Irene would recognize them, any more.

Green Bag

Pink Scarf

Phyllis: is doing a seminar at CNCH. She just finished her booklet for her students. It is a three hour class that covers spinning, weaving, and making a garment. This is clearly an overview class. It will have little activities to keep the students engaged. She has decided not to pass around samples because she feels it would distract from the talk. She needed someone to pose with shawl for photo to use in class (not the booklet). Jenna did a fabulous job of it. The shawl is woven from wool dyed green dye is from Japanese plum blossoms. It has been used for many years. Phyllis showed us how her sister-in-law folds to show more or less of the dark green to coordinate with the rest of the outfit she is wearing it with.

Book for talk at CNCH

Lotus: played hooky from weaving CNCH scarves. She has a new boss - yay! She spent much of the meeting helping Natasha find her inner spinner.

Green wool for lap rug

Nancy W.: is spinning silk. She loved what she had from Sacramento but wanted something coppery to ply against it. She just got it from Redfish. She showed us a knitted rectangular shawl, with 5" collar made from hand spun. Pattern is from a knitter's magazine. As she is preparing to move to Morro Bay, she thanked us all for the friendship and support we have shown her over the years and as she's been chair of CNCH. (We'll miss you, Nancy.) She and her husband are designing their house and she, hopefully will have a 500 sq. ft. studio for holding classes and retreats.

Spinning Silk

Handspun shawl

Handspun yarn

Victoria: is spinning alpaca silk blend (still). She took felting class at Stitches. She made a little blue purse and then added a big red heart.

Spinning alpaca silk blend

Felted heart bag

Thanks for coming and carding

Ginger: finished a knit along shawl from a mostly German group. It stated with 5 stitches cast on at center back of neck and is knitted outward from there. It is a lovely turquoise and navy from stash (That means it's free. Right?). It alternates every other row. To unify the colors, she always carried a very fine royal blue strand. She is spinning mohair.

Spinning Mohair

Turquoise shawl

Sue: is spinning silk. She has been laid off. Are any of you looking of software QA person? She got a wholesale order for her rainbow earrings. They will be sold at http://www.rainbowdepot.com/ whenever they get there and are processed.

Sue will be exhibiting art shows on the dates of the May (Los Altos Rotary Art show http://www.rotaryartshow.com/) and June (Marin Art festival http://www.marinartfestival.com/) meetings. Someone will need to fill in as president for those two meetings.

Spinning Silk

Frank: finished a bag from last month but didn't bring it. He made some paper. It can even be put through an inkjet printer. He made it from recycled paper. It started with NetFlix tear offs. He is knitting another bag in shades of purple with sparkly eyelash accents.

Funky bag

Handmade Paper

Jennifer: is spinning blue targhee. It's a really lovely shade.

Spinning Targhee

Nanny D.: had a shack update for us. They have selected the furnishings. One will be Japanese style. One will be Mexican migrant worker style furnishings. These fruit picker shacks are from a Japanese farm. She brought in 1991 Serendipity newsletters. Sue will scan them and put them on our website. She is spinning 80% merino/ 20% something else that Ginger didn't catch.

Spinning merino blend

Jenna: has multicolor shopping bag. She wondered if it should sag the way it does. The answer was yes.. That way it can hold lots.

Cool Shopping Bag

And that's March in a Nutshell.

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