Guild Meetings

I’m not sure how many people belong to Guilds, or knitting groups or just have a regular Stitch and Bitch group that they attend. I never saw myself as someone who would join a group like this, but almost 2 years into it, I’m hooked. (Actually, I was hooked by the second or third meeting, but anyway…) You know, it’s nothing remarkably special – just a group of ladies (in some cases, men as well, but we seem to be a bit estrogen heavy in York Region) that get together and share something that is important to each of us. Our love of knitting. We arrive, we greet one another, find a chair, sit and take out the project du jour. Show and Tell is always interesting – members showing off the fruits of their labours, It’s cool – there is such a range of skill levels out there. And, I find that people that were so convinced that they couldn’t do something are urged to try it, and surprise themselves when they complete a new project. Perfect example – Susan, a member of our Guild was convinced that socks were beyond her - “I’m just a beginner”. After a few meetings, she got up the courage to try a pair. A month later, she was showing off her first pair of socks! The downside of this was witnessed later, in the shop, as she added to her stash some balls of sock yarn. Ah, another one sucked in! Last night – I sucked her into the ruffly scarf abyss! I showed off my purple and black one and green one, and she was all over them! Although she said she wasn’t buying anything, she walked out with a few balls of the On Line Solo!
We also get guest speakers – Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, Fiona Ellis, Maureen Mason-Jamieson, Amy Singer, Wellington Fibres, to name a few (apologies if I’ve forgotten anyone). And of course, last night we were graced by Wannietta Prescod, North America’s faster knitter.

I tried to get a good pic of Wannietta and her knitting style – she freely admits it’s unorthodox. Wannietta, I apologize – the only picture I got of you actually showing your knitting style – well, let’s just say you’ll thank me for not posting it. Sorry!
CatBookMom was curious as to how she can knit so quickly – the working needle is jammed into her thigh, the needle with the stitches sits perpendicular to this at the top. All the stitches are crammed near the tip, and off she goes – faster than I could believe. For her to get a room full of knitters to basically stop what they are doing to watch, you know she’s good! She throws the yarn, and was still faster than the Continental knitters – mind you, Tove hasn’t used straight needles in years, so that was a bit of a detriment to her.
Wannietta also talked about her job as a professional knitter – knitting samples for designers like Fiona Ellis, and a number of pattern companies – as she said, it’s pretty cool to see a magazine cover and say “I knit that” not just the pattern, mind you , but the ACTUAL SWEATER that is in the photograph.
Thanks for coming Wannietta – we had a great time!

This year, we are thinking of branching out from just talks to maybe doing some workshops – we’ll see. It’s a lot of work coordinating workshops, and since I do a lot of it, my real jobs always gets in the way!
By the way, I think I have a new member coming soon – one of my son’s basketball coaches, Bonnie, always sees me knitting at practices and games – when I told her I was taking off early last night to go to my Knitting Guild meeting, she was like “A Knitting Guild? Here? WHERE? WHEN?” I’m pretty sure we’ll be seeing her soon…