Karen Soltys of Martingale and Company Publishers treated us to the ins and outs of the publishing world. She shared with us many books that are in the pipeline for release later this year, as well as inviting us to submit book proposals to their company. Karen explained the publishing process and the months of hard work that goes into every book that is published. She brought some wonderful door prizes and invited us to come to their shop in Bothell for a tour, which is always concluded by a visit to their 'hurt' book room. The tour is the only way to access this incredible opportunity to pick up some amazing deals on the books they publish. We are organizing a tour on February 20th at 1 pm, please check our Ravelry page for more information.

    I loved hearing all of the stories that she shared and am definitely looking forward to a few of the books that she shared with us, becoming available. Two books have recently been released and are available in many local shops or at their online store.

Please click on the pictures to be taken to Martingale's Facebook page with more information on these two books.

    December is our Annual Holiday Party and it was a wonderful meeting. As you can see from the picture, there were plenty of gifts to go around and a nice selection of items to choose from. Several of the gifts were donated by Coats & Clark and Teresa at Country Yarns in Snohomish stayed open a bit late to help those who had forgotten, didn't have time, or weren't sure they were coming, purchase last minute gifts. Everyone who brought a gift, put their name into the basket and when their name was drawn they had the opportunity to come and choose a gift. I thought it went very smoothly and most people were pleased with their selection. 

    There was a lot of food to choose from, most of it sweet, but there were several savory dishes as well. The party was well attended by about 30 people, with a few faces we haven’t seen in awhile and a few new ones as well. We had a lot of fun visiting and sharing our current knitting projects as well as some wonderful show and tells. I love seeing all of the wonderful projects that people are working on and being able to visit with those people that I only see at the guild meetings. I had a great time.

    Our next meeting is on 10 January 2012 and we will be hosting Karen Soltys from Martingale & Company Publishing. She will be talking to us about the publishing side of knitting, as well as her favorite book/pattern. There will be door prizes and we are working with her to have some books available to purchase as well. If you have any specific questions that you would like to ask her, you can submit them in advance by emailing Aleen. It should be a very fun meeting.

     Also if you purchased a Yarn Train bag, they will be available during the meeting (we will not be charging at the door for this speaker, because we would like to encourage as many people as possible to pick up their bags at the meeting.)

    ~Tandy, SKG Webmaster

    Please join us for fun, food and fellowship on 13 December, for our annual Holiday Party. If you have been thinking of checking out one of our meetings, this is the perfect time to get to know us and see what a wonderful group of people belong to the Snohomish Knitters Guild. Everyone is welcome.
    There will be a potluck of sweet and savory finger foods, please bring your favorite treat to share, drinks will be provided. If you would like to share the recipe of your potluck treat, please email it to Tandy, the webmaster,  (with or without a picture) and she will make them available on our website the next day. If you would like to share your extra treats, please bring some bags or containers for others to take your treat home in, but please make sure that everything is taken care of before the end of the meeting. (Any unclaimed food at the end of the meeting will have to be thrown out.)
    We will also be having a fun gift exchange, during the meeting. If you would like to participate, please bring a knitting related gift with a value of $15 - $25, nicely packaged, but not wrapped. When you bring a gift, you will get to put your name in the basket. When your name is drawn, you will get to quickly look over all of the remaining gifts, pick one, then draw the next name. There will be a few extra gifts and any remaining at the end of the meeting will be used for guild door prizes at future meetings. If you forget to bring a gift, Teresa at Country Yarns (across the street from the Waltz Building) has generously agreed to stay open until 7 pm that evening and has offered guild members 10% off anything (excluding consigned items) purchased the evening of 13 December for the gift exchange.

    *Also, if you have paid your membership dues but have not yet received a welcome email and/or newsletter, please contact Jae, our treasurer, to confirm your email address, or talk to us at the December meeting. Our December newsletter will be going out next week.

    ~Tandy, SKG Webmaster

    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