We discovered a new disorder…Post Traumatic Knitting Disorder (PTKD) that we will be researching in the coming months. If you suffer from this disorder, please be advised that the best treatment is to continue knitting until the symptoms (whatever those are for you) subside. It is also believed that the size of your yarn stash is directly related to your recovery…more yarn quicker recovery.

There was considerable talk about a knitting sleepover at the beach…right Barb? Details to be worked out at a later gathering.

well, back to work…..missed those of you who weren’t able to be there,
Kristen

And then Lois adds a recap on who’s working on what:
*Barb came in working on socks but left with a wonderful new summer vest in a green that we all consulted on.
*Becky worked on socks, I think, but also did show-and-tell of her weaving in the parking lot. Beautiful!
*Avril continues to plug away on her grey cardigan, doing more knitting and less talking. We dissuaded her from turning it into a short-sleeved cardigan.*
*Sue is *so* nearly done with her toddler sweater, and found very cute puppy buttons, which inspired her to do some kind of applique doghouse on the back. . . stay tuned!
*Kristen worked (when she wasn’t dazzled!) on a green lacy shawl. She valiantly resisted a color-block sweater coat kit. . . so far.
II theoretically worked on socks, but left with three new projects.
*Lorilee was working on socks when she wasn’t tempting people with new projects or helping them over rough spots.

Who’m I missing? Oh, and there was a lovely nutty cake that appeared mid-evening. Thanks, Lorilee, for hosting!

Yay and congrats, Lorilee! It’s so exciting to see your stuff in that lovely mag.

–Julie

Ahem. We have snow. And soon we are told we will have wind. These combine to make most or all of our houses kind of bad bets for parking and night travel. And what with all the closed schools, I’m guessing many of us would rather play it safe.

But for those of us who kind of enjoy going out in this stuff? THOSE of us will meet at JPs tonight, to knit in the face of the winter storm as our ancestors always have. Ha! Ha!

And we’ll take advantage of our extra Tuesday to meet as planned, as outlined in the last email. What? Did you not get the email? Or deleted it too soon? Contact a member. We can fix you up.

Happy knitting everybody !

Oh. Wait.  Um, Becky? Won’t be joining us this evening? Because she’s packing for her Caribbean cruise.  She says she’s going to knit socks while she’s gone…. bless her heart…

Nippled gloves do too help you pick things up. No one was willing to buy that argument, but I know when Carla finishes hers, she’ll be able to testify. Carla told us all about her new best friend Debbie Stoller, and then worked on Meridith’s sweater, at least as much as she could before her young eyes gave out.

Lois worked on a groovy sock, for which she will not forget to put the purl stitch back onto the original needle before working the toe, or some of us won’t be able to sleep.

Eileen’s worked on a sweater for whomever, and needs to go shopping to pick a new project for Chris. We learned she’s another slightly-allergic-to-finishing knitter.

Sue revealed her beautiful baby sweater, and performed a stash dive with Julie to find four inches of just the right stuff to close a one-inch seam.

Kristen helped Julie understand how to fix socks, and she’ll do a stash dive to save the Christmas socks for the Ridls. Also she gave us a little lesson in linguistics that will have to be shared woman-a-woman. Avril started it. (I’m sort of poking fun at Avril, and sort of absolutely not, never.)  All this while she worked on another ittybittymitten for the kids in Alaska. Remember the kids in Alaska? No? We’re knitting for kids in Alaska. We are. Perhaps someone will remind Julie of the details so she can put them on this blog….?

Julie worked on the new twin Tomten jackets and a little bit on the peacefleece/philosopher’s wool tunic.

Avril worked on her killer sweater. (Less whining, more knitting!) And she started us thinking about everybody in the class knitting a sweater out of the same yarn. Right? We knew we couldn’t agree on one style, but agreeing on one color seems a bit of a challenge too. We may be in agreement about a tweed. But a tweedy what? Not green. Maybe red if it’s not a Christmasy Red. We may need to knit at a yarn shop to decide this. At any rate, it’s a great idea.

Julie revealed the circa 1976 cursed boyfriend sweater that she thought was so beautiful but turned out to be…. not, and made of some stuff that would be good to use if you wanted to make pot scrubbers. But it WAS less than $3 per skein…. so…. We felt the need to wash our hands after handling that yarn.

Jack said he never heard so much laughing in all his life, and it sort of terrified him into staying in his room. He was worried.

Another good night, is what it was. And we had a great night last month too, at Lois’ place, where we first welcomed Eileen, and where we giggled a lot and scared Chris away. Sorry for the lost details. I’ll try to be better…

At any rate, next month we’ll find a date that is NOT Christmas Day (which is the fourth Tuesday of the month), but just before Christmas so we can finish up those last bits of gift knitting…. and we’ll be heading for Douglas, and Eileen’s spectacular tree house. It’ll be fun to scare her Chris away. Although, he doesn’t scare quite so easily….

My life in poetry has been made warm and magical because Julie Moulds Rybicki is in it. She lit up my classes more than 20 years ago, and has lit up my mind and heart and life ever since. I am not alone. I bring her back to my classes as often as I can so she can spread her gift to as many students as possible. Her work and devotion to students of all ages makes her one of those teachers whose gifts can never be measured or repaid in any way.  She’s given us so much.

So it especially infuriates me that she has had to fight with cancer for her whole adult life. But being Julie, she has beaten cancer over and over again. She has to put up another fight. It’s time for another transplant. And our health care system being what it is, and fighting cancer for 20 years doing what it does to a family’s finances, Julie and her family now need our help. I think we can give it, don’t you?

There’s a big fundraising underway. Come to it or mail it in. But please, let’s support our amazing friend, okay? And please help spread the word!

**** All-Star Poetry & Fiction Reading, Concert * and Party*****

To Benefit the NTAF Great Lakes Bone Marrow Transplant Fund

In Honor of Julie Moulds Rybicki

For Her bone marrow Transplant Relocation Costs

Featuring the Poetry and Fiction of: Con Hilberry, Bonnie Jo Campbell,   Bill Olsen,   Nancy Eimers,   Jack Ridl,

Jackie Bartley,   Rodney Torreson,   Diane Seuss,   David Lee, Elizabeth Kerlikowske,   Andy Mozina,   Danna Ephland,

Gail Martin,   Greg Rappleye,   Nina feirer,   Dave Marlatt, Susan Ramsey,   John Rybicki   and   Julie Moulds Rybicki

Also featuring:

Irish music by Dave Marlatt and the Rambling Boys of Pleasure as well as American Roots Acoustic music by Solid Geometry and a Silent Auction of arts, crafts and signed books.

Where:  Kraftbrau Brewery    www.kraftbraubrewery.com    

Located at 402 East Kalamazoo Avenue, Kalamazoo, MI 49007, 269-384-0288

When:  Sunday, November 4 from 3 to 7:30 p.m.

Cash Bar.  Food provided.  Cost: $5

Come enjoy wonderful words, live music, revelry, mingling, eating, drinking and dancing.

Schedule: 

3-4 p.m. American Roots Acoustic music by Solid Geometry

4-5 p.m. All-Star Reading Part I

5-6 p.m. Irish music by Dave Marlatt and the Rambling Boys of Pleasure

6-7:  All-Star Reading Part II

7-7:30. More revelry, auction results and wrap-up

For additional information, Email John Rybicki at jjrybick@yahoo.com

Tax-Deductible Donations Can Be Made Out To:

NTAF Great Lakes Bone Marrow Transplant Fund,

150 N. Radnor Chester Road,

Suite F-120, Radnor, PA 19087. 

Print “In Honor of Julie Rybicki” in the check’s memo section.

For secure, online credit card contributions visit: www.transplantfund.org or call NTAF at 1-800-642-8399, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., EST.

Contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.  This campaign is administered by the National Transplant Assistance Fund, a 501(c) (3) non-profit providing assistance to transplant and catastrophic injury patients.  Information:  1-800-642-8300.   Michigan registration number: MICS No. 11575.

Avril points us to this lovely event at Lizzie Ann’s:

http://lizzieann.wordpress.com/2007/09/28/red-scarf-project-week-at-lizzie-anns

Hope to see some of you there, or some of your scarves!

And then in August we returned to Barb’s amazing Beach treehouse, for more beach combing and a good knit, and got to hear from Avril about first weeks at Hope (hmm… design problem anyone?), admire a lot of new projects, especially Barb’s amazingly quick progress on a handspun natural yarn sweater, and Avril’s work on a baby sweater, and Lois’ mermaid-worthy sweater from handspun she picked up at the fiber festival, and Kristen’s mom’s sweater she’s doing the collar for and the amazing lacy O-wool sweater she’s making for her buddy, and Julie’s Marr Haven super-easy Elizabeth Zimmerman sweater (which she has botched and ripped back twice as of this writing… ). Becky (who has Alpacas!) was working on a beautiful Alpaca hat. Ellen’s got new baby stuff on the sticks, very cute, very cute… oh. And Sue was working on a lacy scarf she’ll be donating to someone other than any one of us. Fine.

We picked the Fall lineup for hostesses: September is Sue, October is Lois, and November is Julie. We’ll talk about what to do about December (skip or meet earlier to finish out those gifts?)

Hey we heard from Lorilee, knitclub member and owner of City Knitting in G.R. that she’s had a pattern accepted for publication in Interweave Knits! Is that hot or what?!? Eunny Jang Herself called her and accepted a pattern for Spring 2008. Yay Lorilee! We knew her when…

Here’s what I got….

Okay, they’re pretty plain, but imagine them with more spectacular beads, different colors, some kicky needlefelting, maybe allover beads? Maybe some cool Coralscape, a la, Ms. Jorgenson? Or something? I can see that, yes? So here’s how I did it, and when you do yours, will you send me a link?

First the ingredients:

Plain old worsted wool. In this case Plymouth Galway. A couple of beads… really optional, but I liked the idea. A length of elastic that is double the length of the DPNs you’re trying to protect, and a plastic bag that you’ll use to make some plastic yarn the way my hero, Helle does. you need less than a fist-ful of plastic yarn. A crochet hook, mine is 4mm.

Chain 3, and 8sc into first chain:

then pull the tail through the center along with a loop of elastic, wrap the elastic around the tail.

then fix the tail with a bead and knot it off. I think I might next time make the tail a crochet chain, for strength. The elastic will pull the bead and knot tight to the end when the needle holder is in place, so don’t worry too much about a little floppiness right now. Just try to get the end bead or knot as close to the hole as you can.

and then work 8sc rounds until the piece is about as long as your finger….

Then stuff the piece with the plastic yarn, just feeding it in and stuffing until it is full. Not overfull, but full…

The plastic will keep the piece from felting in on itself. Now knot the elastic ends, and close the top, looping the elastic through one of the loops, so it’s fixed at the top, just as it is at the bottom, stuffing all the elastic inside before you completely close the loops at the top… The elastic will stick out a little. That’s just fine…

Bead and knot off the top to make a funny looking little thingamajig…

I tried machine felting, this, but it was too small, and ended up fulling it by rolling it between my palms under the hottest water I could stand…

Until I got this little green hairball…

The next step was to carefully cut it apart, but in my zeal, I just chopped the whole thing in half, and cut right through the elastic cord… darn. I reknotted that. But you will be more careful, and use tiny scissors to cut your little hairball in tiny snips to avoid the elastic, then remove the plastic yarn, and show your needles their new home…

And I’m thinking how cute it would be to knit or crochet, and then felt little tip cups for this purpose? Or needlefelt them? Hmm…