Swirls of creamy brown and earthen red felt on thick carpets transformed the textile studio at Capilano College into a Kyrgystan Yurt on a recent visit.  Sponsored by a Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) grant Janyl, Manager/Director spoke through her interpreter/anthoropolgist Guljan to the rapt audience about their struggle to feed their families post-Russain occupation.  The slides show women, who are widows and divorcees, children and the elderly plying their traditional felting art outside in freezing temperatures over cauldrons heated by open fires.  For all their efforts the cooperative, Altyn O, of Bokonbaevo, make about $18,000 a year split among 36 members.  Yetta Lees S, one of the original founders of Circle Craft, has been supporting this felt co-op for the past 8 years and has formed a foundation called Friends of Bokonbaevo.  The women are here to participate in Fair Trade markets in Campbell River, Nanaimo, Gabriola and Victoria.  Also they have been giving lectures and slide slows at community colleges, guilds, and other special interest groups.

The felters will be in Vancouver at Atelier Istanbul and Suzy Baker Design on Granville Island (1814 Maritime Mews, the lane with the big propellers) from Nov. 29-Dec 1 from 11 am to 5:30 pm.  Their work will be available for purchase, including felted home decor, wearables, and accessories.  The public is invited to come see their amazing traditional and contempory designs and enjoy a cup of tea from the samovar.

There are still spaces in the knitting workshops so don’t be disappointed and sign up now! For more information visit their website.

Come and hear Susanna Hansson speak about the history of Norwegian knitting; how traditional Norwegian designs evolved and where they’re headed today. We’ll make a brief stop at the Selbu Knitting Museum and enjoy some of the scenery around Trondheim as well.

You will have a chance afterwards to meet and visit with Susanna.

Date: Friday, September 26, 2008
Place: Canadian School of Natural Nutrition, 100 - 2245 W Broadway, Vancouver (between Yew and Vine)
Time: 7:00 to 9:00 pm, Doors open at 6:30 pm (come early as seating is limited)
Cost: $10.00 per person at the door

Refreshments will be served.

Location:  at the picnic shelters near the Childrens’ Farmyard & miniature train.  Take the #19 Stanley Park bus on Pender Street or park in the nearby lot. 

Bring a chair or blanket to knit in the sun or sit on the picnic benches (cushion advised) under the shelter.  Laura P. generally provides refreshments for this event but this year she is moving her house and business.  That being the case, this year will be “pot luck” so please bring some finger food/beverages. 

Stay an hour or stay all day.  Consider joining the Guild to knit with us every month and enjoy the perks such as a 10% discount on purchases at most LYSs (Local Yarn Shops).

Friday evening Susanna will talk to us about Knitting in Norway: Past and Present or What did Napoleon have to do with the Fana Cardigan? We’ll have refreshments and a chance to schmooze with Susanna afterwards.

The Saturday workshop will be Bohus Stickning. Susanna will supply kits with specially imported, hand-dyed yarns from Sweden for us to work with. Come prepared to knit with small needles and fine angora blend yarns. Susanna will also give us presentation on the background of the Bohus garments and cottage industry.

On Sunday we’ll learn about the mittens from Rovaniemi while we work on an intriguing intarsia-like technique to create the distinctive sawtooth design that appears on the back of the mittens of that region. The unique technique is like none I’ve ever heard of before and I, for one, can’t wait to learn more.

Susanna comes highly recommended. Just read some of her reviews on other people’s blogs such as The Yarn Harlot, Yin & Yarn, The Intrepid Fiberwizard and Spinning My Life Away.

You might also want to scroll through The Yarn Harlot’s February 2007 archives for glimpsed of the beautiful gold Bohus sweater that Stephanie Pearl-McPhee knit after taking Susanna’s workshop. I had the honour of seeing that actual completed sweater being worn by Stephanie last year when we chatted at the Victoria Knit-Out. It is truly beautiful.

The workshops are open to Guild members and non-members alike. There is an earlybird rate so register early to secure your spot. You have the choice of taking one workshop, both workshops or just come to the Friday evening presentation.

Read more about the Birth of a Logo in the July/August 2008 issue of West Coast Knitters’ News.

Saltspring Island Knitting Retreat runs over two separate weeks (June 12-19 or June 22-29) full of knitting and relaxation in a large three-storey log farmhouse. The theme is Modular Knitting. Learn to incorporate these shapes into your own knitting designs, create a notebook of samples, complete several small projects or one large one. Contact Alice at trueman@uniserve.com.

Janis W. is teaching Beginning Crochet. By the end of this class you’ll know how to make a square and the four basic crochet stitches.

A great class to take in conjunction with this is Carmen’s Combination Techniques & Surface Embellishment workshop where she’ll show you a combination of knitting and crochet stitches so you can “make a silk purse from of a sow’s ear” in her words.

Michelle Katerberg is teaching her techtouq workshop highlighting techniques such as tubular cast-on, short rows and jogless stripes while making a baby’s hat with earflaps.

Holli Yeoh’s Make the Guess Who? Gloves class is a walk through of her new glove pattern and will highlight the unique thumb gusset and talk about getting the right fit with gloves.

Download our workshop descriptions and registration form for more information.

• Help raise funds for the Canadian Diabetes Association’s diabetes research and education programs.

• Help knit the world’s largest knitted sculpture – a silver-gray diabetes awareness ribbon. Tricia is looking for hundreds of knitters to participate. Tell your friends!

• Tricia and her friends are trying to beat diabetes…and the world record for a knitted sculpture, of course! You can be a part of this. The current record holder for the largest knitted sculpture is an enormous pink bunny on an Italian mountainside. Tricia’s goal is for the awareness ribbon to be at least 80 metres long!

• What do you need to do? Knit a garter stitch scarf out of silver or gray yarn, approximately 1 metre long and 20 centimetres wide. Please use 5 1/2 or 6 mm needles and don’t sew in the ends (they’ll be used for joining the scarves). If you live in the Vancouver area, please contact Michael’s craft store in North Vancouver if you would like a ball of FREE GRAY YARN that they have donated to the cause.

• Tricia also needs help covering the ribbon with the names of donors from coast to coast! Everyone who donates at least $5 to the campaign will have their name placed on the ribbon as it is displayed.

• Do you know an artist or craftsperson? After the ribbon is created and displayed, artists will decorate each piece of the giant ribbon, and the pieces will be sold as gorgeous scarves! All proceeds will be donated to the campaign.

• For more information, contact Tricia at: knitfordiabetes AT hotmail DOT com
or call 604-842-3251.

To donate to Tricia’s Canadian Diabetes Association fundraising efforts, head to www.diabetes.ca and click on Team Diabetes – Pledge a Participant – Tricia Edgar.

A bit ago, my daughter ran into one of her students of that very first year of her kindergarten class and mentioned to the student that I was coming again, before Christmas with more mittens. The student, now in grade 5, said that they still had their pair which they had been given that year, though they were way too small. Now that pair of mittens are hung on the Christmas tree every year. This was the best mitten story I have have ever heard or read.

I don’t know which student, or which pair of mittens these are, but to those who knitted a pair of mittens that first year, and too all who knitted mittens in each of the years following, we will never know how those mittens finished. perhaps they are hanging on a Christmas tree in New York city every year.

Much thanks, on behalf of my daughter Annie, myself, who has this story to warm my heart every year as I decorate my own tree, and some of the children of New York city, with warm hands AND hearts brought to them by a West Coast Knitters’ Guild,
Laura P.