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| Hollyhocks |
The meeting started off with all kinds of announcements.
The Evergreen State Fair will take place in Monroe, Washington, from August 23 - September 3. There will be many types of fair exhibitions and competitions including knitting, crochet and lace. You can fill out the entrance forms on line. Don't quote me on this, but there was talk at the EKG meeting that there will be "knitting demonstrations" as a "Sit and Knit" on Sunday, August 26th. If you volunteer for 4 hours, you can get free parking and admission for that day. I couldn't find anything to support this on the website, but it is definitely worth a call.
The EKG is ramping up their stocking knitting for Operation Holiday Stockings. They knit small holiday stockings to be filled with toiletries and goodies for our troops overseas. This year they are committed to knit 1200 stockings, but hope to make it to 3000.
The Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival will take place September 22 & 23 at the Clackams County Fairgrounds in Canby Oregon.
The National Button Society will hold it's National Convention in Portland, Oregon from August 4 - 11. This is a bit of a late notice, but if you can get there, it should be really cool.
Northwest Bead Society is holding the 24th Annual Bead Bazaar at the Lynnwood Convention Center, in Lynnwood, WA on September 29th and 30th. Admission is $6 and it is good for both days.
A bit of exciting news is that Skacel is opening a retail yarn shop in October, relatively near to its current wholesale headquarters in Kent. There will also be a gluten free bakery on the site. Yum.
After all of the announcements, there was a presentation. Tonight, guild member Carol Buckmiller demonstrated and taught Portuguese Knitting. The stitches are the same as regular knitting, but the method is quite different from both Continental and English methods of tension and holding the yarn.
The presentation was very interesting. And by the end of the evening, I was knitting and more importantly, purling, using the Portuguese method.
The method uses a hook and pin attached to the knitters left shoulder. The yarn is held to the right of the knitter, and in the right hand, usually wrapped around one finger (we used our middle fingers), then run up to the hook, and back down to the knitting in the left hand. The yarn tension should be fairly tight, so you can pluck the taut yarn.
This method is supposedly more ergonomic and faster than the throwing methods since you hold your hands in a neutral position, and there is less hand movement. Purling, especially, is supposed to be easier and faster.
Carol showed us a beautiful 2 color stranded hat she made during a class she took in using this method in colorwork. She has gotten so much faster at purling since she started with this method, that she now does purled garter stitch instead of knitted when a pattern calls for it.
As with any new method, it felt quite awkward at first, but I could see the possibilities with purling, especially. I have to say that the knit stitch seemed awkward, and caused me to move my right hand a lot, and now my wrist is a bit achy. Well, maybe I should use this method occasionally just to keep my muscles moving.
Where in the World is f1bercat?
I only knit for 4 miles today. When I got to the Y, the parking lot was really empty, but when I got inside all of the recumbent bikes were in use! That has never happened to me before. Then, as I was knitting, I realized that I was off in one of the seed stitch panels of my Better than French Vanilla Socks, and I might be able to knit while riding that exercise bike, and fix small errors, but I can not fix seed stitch while pedaling. Anyway, when I got home and really looked at the sock, I realized that I had somehow picked up an extra stitch. Luckily for me, it was the first stitch of the section. So, when I dropped that stitch, my seed stitch was fine.
But, I had to stop riding at 4 miles, because, it is just too boring to ride and not knit.
Those 4 miles put me at 385.93 miles knitted.
This is near Drain, Oregon.
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Here I am on the big map.
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Last night I picked up my son, Himes, from the airport. He is home after 3 weeks in France. His plane was more than 3 hours late and didn't arrive until almost 1 am. I am so tired.
And so, on that tired, whiney note, I will say goodnight.
Stay safe and well.
Yours,
f1bercat
shaping the planet the Portuguese way.
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