We had a lot of fun marveling over the details of the hand knit Royal Wedding, created by Everett Library staff members. One of the staff members, came across the book, Knit Your Own Royal Wedding by Fiona Goble, in acquisitions and had the brilliant idea to knit the entire wedding party before the wedding. The wedding was only about 3 weeks away, so she quickly conspired with her fellow staff members and they decided which ones, each of them would knit. Each of the figures show an amazing amount of detail and they finished in time to enjoy a lovely tea party on the wedding day, dressed in their lovely tea dresses and hats. The knitted Royal Wedding then went on display at the library and gathered regional awareness, through an article in the Everett paper, which then led to national coverage on CNN and in Simply Knitting magazine. The display was entered in the Evergreen State Fair and won four ribbons, First Place, Best Presentation, Creative Award and Special Award. 
    They have started a new project now for the holidays. Their new project is the patterns from the book, 'Twas the Knits before Christmas by Fiona Goble. They really enjoyed working together on the Royal Wedding project and have plans for another project in the spring. It was wonderful hearing about their collaborative efforts and inspiring us to keep our knitting community strong. 

    We also enjoyed a wonderful presentation by Mary Donaty of Paradise Found Fiber Farm in Clinton, WA. She told us how she got started with breeding llamas, which led to her selling their fiber. She soon bought alpacas and pygora goats as well and is kept very busy tending to and processing their fiber for sale. She brought many samples, which we all got to fondle a bit and explained the grading process and differences in the types of fiber from each of the animals. She also explained  the many variances that can happen within a breed, which leads to there not being a true standard, when we asked which fiber was the best to work with. Mary told us that it greatly depends on the individual animal and then on the mill that processes that fiber, which leads to the quality of fiber that you may get. With some of her animals, she hand plucks the guard hairs from the fiber, because doing so by machine would lead to a larger loss of the desirable fiber. I found it amazing that with pygora goats, the different colors did not amount to a hugely different color in the fiber, because the color in in the guard hairs, not the fiber. Therefore a black goat will give you a slightly grayish fiber, and a caramel goat will give you an off-white fiber. Both of these look fairly white on their own and the true color differences are best seen when they are held next to each other. Paradise Found Fiber Farm is open weekends 10 - 4 and by appointment on weekdays. Be sure to visit their Fiber Shack while you are there to pick up some of the gorgeous and luxurious fiber and knitted items she has available. 

    I really enjoyed the double feature program. There was a wonderful energy and we had a fairly full house for these wonderful speakers. Thank you to the Everett Library Staff and Mary Donaty for a fun and educational meeting.

     ~Tandy, SKG Webmaster

I was really pleased to see that we had so many knitters attend the meeting. I really enjoyed Charisa's presentation on how to take good photos. Two things that really stood out for me was:

1. get it off the bed/table-great advice, I'm looking forward to playing around with that idea and
   
2. use your camera to capture colors in nature for inspiration on choosing color schemes for knitting projects~ what a novel idea! :) 
   

    I really liked Melissa's [Knit New(s)] presentation. She did an awesome job and her visuals were beautiful~ I felt really nostalgic, my mom used to make beautiful granny afghans, the ones that Melissa showcased were lovely. I also really related to what Melissa said, during her presentation, about always choosing black/browns or neutral colors for garments... I do the same, I don't feel confident picking colors a lot of times, and having some inspiration from nature or a photographic source would be great.
    
    I liked that we all got to vote on a bag for the Seattle to Portland Yarn Train, and I'm excited that I'm going to be able to attend this year. It will be my first time on this trip and only my second time on a train.

    I think this is going to be a great year for the guild, and it's great to be able to connect with so many creative people.

     ~Lois, SKG Secretary, 2011-2012