January 2010 Newsletter

Next Meeting January 16, 2010
10 AM - 4 PM (more or less)
Email goes to: spinner@serendipityspinners.org

December Nutshell

by Sue and Ginger

Our December meeting was a potluck at Nancy Weber's house. Only six people made it to the meeting. Since two of them are officers, we could conduct business. Not that it would stop us if none of us were officers.

Old Business

Workshop

Aviva has been in contact with Nancy Roberts about doing a workshop. The workshops that she has been discussing with Ms. Roberts are some version of Machine Knitting to Dye For. There are a couple of options. There is just the lecture, there is the workshop where the machine knitted blanks are provided for us to dye and there's the workshop where we knit our own blanks and dye them. The proposal can be seen here and her resume here. In order for the cost per person to be reasonable, we need to get 10-12 people for the workshop. Ginger's mother took a similar class in Pennsylvania. They made their own blanks to dye. They had a lot of fun and the resulting yarn made very pretty socks.

CNCH

Signups are in progress. There are 237 people signed up for classes etc. so far. Nancy asked if Serendipity would be willing to do 350 cards or flyers for the goodie bags to advertise our existance and (maybe) get new members. It was voted to reimburse Sue for commercial printing of that many flyers. Nancy reminded us that keeping the cost of the convention down is dependant on the sale of hotel rooms and encourages those that can to stay in the hotel.

the goody bag

Heifer International

We voted to make our anual donation to Heifer International of $200 for four shares of a knitting basket. Lotus, please send the check.

Monterey Wool Auction

As long as we were voting away our money, we discussed if we wanted to send more money than usual to the Monterey Wool Auction. This was tabled until the April meeting.

New Business:

Kelley Park

Someone asked what happened with our December meeting and what our relationship with the museum is. On our usual December meeting day, a group rented the entire park. What our relationship is, is somewhat hazy. Next year, we'll give the park money to rent the firehouse second floor just as soon as they let us. That usually assures us a place for our December meeting that has a small kitchen and is nice.

Membership

Serendipity's membership is down. Those few of us who attend regularly have noticed this. This year, as president, I (Sue) want to actively recruit new members. We had a discussion on ways to do this.
Sue agreed to put an ad on Craigslist the 2nd Saturday under events and look into what it takes to get the even broadcast on KLIV. has occasional free ads for non-profit.

It was suggested that we could put our cards/flyers in knitting stores. Purlescence was one suggestion. Aviva will take cards/flyers to the Santa Cruz store (Golden Fleece?). Nancy W. will take them to Green Planet Yarns in Campbell.

We decided we need half of 8.5"X11" sheet. It's on Sue's todo list to create the flyer.

Another suggestion was to go to the San Mateo county fair and stage a demonstration sheep to shawl. Another place to do the same sort of demonstration is the Maker Faire. It is free to have a booth at Maker.

Typically, Serendipity sees a few new faces after Stitches at the March meeding. Can we do something to make that meeting more interesting? We also need to be very dilligent about getting our card into each bag we send a CD spindle home in.

Can we get a sheep-to-shawl Demo at the San Mateo county fair of the Maker Faire?
Since we typically get new folks investigating us at meeting after Stitches, can we make the March meeting more interesting? Potluck? Several small teaching sessions?

Not Mystery Batts

Please bring drum carders for the January and February meetings.

We have agreed that what we card in January and February hasn't been "mystery batts" in some years. We are carding for the February Stitches booth. This year Moro Fiber Works was kind enough to wash and pick our fleece for free. Lotus will be dying it. The question came up as to what to call the first two meetings of the year since "mystery batt" really isn't correct. Some suggestions were "Serendipity goes to batt" and "Booth batts" and "Serendipity goes batty". Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Potato

The potato in the header really wasn't a gift for the exchange. I was just having some fun with it and the bow I got on my package. Nancy W. had received 50 pounds of potatoes from a relative in Washington State and offered these tasty morsels to us to take home. I had mine the other day. It was really tasty. Thank you, Nancy.

Show 'n Tell

Nancy D.: is knitting a scarf of staggered squares. Her first one was already claimed.
Aviva: is knitting a hat for Sage from yarn she bought at CNCH a year ago.
She finished a shawl from commercial mohair. While she was knitting, she ran out in the middle of the edging. She went on internet and sought for extra ball of the dye lot. She found one from Montreal.
Ginger: has been knitting socks and carding. She was knitting a mohair shawl and realized she wouldn't have enough. She decided to card and spin some white mohair but she had a gray wool fleece she was working on so she carded that. Then she decided she might as will card the gray mohair she was planning to blend. But then she didn't fed like clearing the carder so she did a white mohair fleece to also blend. Now she's Carding the white fleece for the shawl.
Sue: a coworker from Thailand gave her two runners. They are handspun, hand woven and dyed with indigo and madder. Though lovely, they are so not her style. One went to Nancy W. The other found a good home with Nancy D.
Nancy W.: is spinning 80/20 Merino. She has plyed the blue with the turquoise. Judy's Novelty Yarns sells bumps of fiber.
Nancy has her Merino dyed in desert shades. She plans to ply it with very pale peach. She asked for more of another silk blend fiber. This is the fiber that she got dyed a copper color from Elf.
Jocelyn: is knitting mittens for giftfor her sister-in-law who has tiny hands and lives in Sparks Nevada. She needs to finish these so that she can knit her husband a hat for Christmas.
Nancy D. (adendum): watched a grandson's air force basic training graduation. There are 39,000 graduates per year form this base alone. She found it to be really impressive.

Gift exchange

Only three of us wanted to play in the gift exchange. I'd had such plans of ways to liven it up but threw them all out the window and just played Santa. Nancy W. got the gift from Nancy D., Nancy D. got the gift from Sue, and Sue got the gift from Nancy W.

Nancy W. opened: a package whose came with a sheep ornament.
Inside was another sheep wrapped in a scarf of white with sparkly black stripes.

Nancy D. opened: a canvas bag labeled "CRAFTS"
with a metal Mrs Fields box containing an assortment of Mrs Fields nibblers.

Sue opened:
a collection of fiber. There was a little box of pygora, some mohair/merino blend roving and some bombex silk.

After everone was finished opening their gift the opportunity to swap was offered. No one chose to.

That's December in a Nutshell. We hope to see you in January for Serendipity goes Batty

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

Last modified 12/28/2009