Newsletter for December 2003 - January 2004

Message from the outgoing President, Mady W. Segal

Thank you to everyone who made our holiday party at our last meeting so delicious and so much fun! Please send recipes for the dishes you brought to Genia (knitgenia@aol.com) so that she can include them in our next newsletter and send them around. I hope to be able to attend the January meeting and I will bring with me various items people forgot to take home (e.g., a spoon and a container).

December is always our time to elect new officers. Our new President is Kay Alston (kae0861@friend.ly.net if her e-mail is correct on the membership roster). Thank you, Kay, for your willingness to serve. The rest of us will need to help Kay with various tasks. All of our other officers will remain the same; thanks to them for agreeing to continue: Genia Planck as Website Manager, Newsletter Distributor, and Program Chair; Marilyn Riffkin as Treasurer; Donna Jaffe as Membership Chair; Kathleen Walton as Librarian. I hope that Donna Robb will continue to maintain the membership roster. I thank all of these wonderful officers for the work they have done this past year during my presidency.

Kathleen will send a list of the books in our library to Genia, who will distribute them to us. If you want Kathleen to bring a book to the meeting for you to borrow, just contact her (busywoman@eudoramail.com or kwalton@dineout.org) and she will bring the book to the meeting. The cost is just $1 for the month. Such a bargain!

At our December meeting many of us worked on swatches of reversible stitches for our article to be published in Inknitters magazine (and/or for a book that Lauri Katz is putting together). Please bring your completed swatches to the January meeting – along with the pattern for the stitch and any comments you have about it. You will get credit for your participation in the publication(s). If you borrowed size 4 needles from me to make your swatch, please return them at our January meeting.

Lauri Katz and I will co-author the article. Lauri will coordinate the project. As of the December meeting, here are the members who have signed up to have their work in the article for Inknitters (and the items they intend to knit and the stitch to be used):
Alana Beyea (scarf in diagonal rib),
Jeanne Bohlen (scarf, not yet sure what stitch),
Dallas Bolen (stole in lace stitch)
Kathy Graziani (scarf in tilting blocks)
Donna Jaffee (scarf in mistake stitch rib)
Ruth Kelly (item in mistake stitch ribbing – this will need to be different from Donna’s)
Sharon Piper (baby surprise sweater in garter stitch)
Mady W. Segal (scarf in multiple reversible stitches)

Please let Lauri and me know if you would like to be added to this list. Goal for completion of projects is April, with June as the absolute deadline.

Our program ideas so far for this year are:

Socks (Lauri Katz)
Intarsia (Lauri Katz)
Lace book marks (Genia and I can’t remember who makes them, but they’re wonderful!)
Beaded with wire serving utensils (not knitting, but a craft that we all admired)
Knitting with wire
Knitting back - backwards
Beaded knitting
A program or workshop with any of the following teachers:
Margaret Fisher (e.g., at TKGA she is teaching how to alter length on a completed item)
Sally Melville
Beth Brown-Reinsel

Our January 7th meeting will be a “stitch and bitch”, which means that we will meet and talk about knitting without any formal program. We can also continue our discussion of what programs we would like for the year and start to develop a schedule. Perhaps Genia will have had a chance to contact some of the teachers we want, to see when they might be available to come to us and what the cost would be.

Dues (a mere $15) are now due for 2004. Please bring a check (made out to Maryland Metro Knitters) or cash. Marilyn Riffkin is our treasurer.

I hope I haven’t forgotten anything! I wish you all a very happy holiday season! I look forward to seeing you in 2004!

Cheers,
Mady