[June 17, 2017 What a treat we had today!!!
For those of you who couldn't make it, I'm sorry to say, that you missed something truly special. The consolation is that the overwhelming response was to do this again next year.
Demian Savits, owner of Blue Heron yarns, who joined us to show the latest in their yarns and patterns, was a very personable presenter. He and his delightful, birthday-girl wife, Stephanie, brought us figuratively into their studio with his detailed description of the process of dyeing their renown colorways and the story behind the beginning of Blue Heron yarns.
Did I say 'studio?" Actually the dyeing takes place in his basement!!!! This is truly one of those rare and amazing, successful family-owned and operated businesses. Something over twenty years ago, Demian's mom, Barbara Stone, was dyeing her own yarns and receiving acclaim for them. For an experiment, Demian tried selling some online with the resultant overwhelmingly popular and lucrative response. After struggling a while, trying to keep up both his post office job and the yarn business, he quit the post office to dive into the fiber world, with his mom, full time. Thus was born Blue Heron Yarns.
The company is named for the graceful birds which share home space with these fiber artists on the equally beautiful Eastern Shore of Maryland. Check their web page, www.blueheronyarns.com, for hours of business at their shop located at 8737 Brooks Dr. #108 Easton, MD 21601. For information you can also contact them at (410)819-0401 or [email protected].
There is talk of a possible HKG weekend "road trip" to Easton, true destination....Blue Heron's shop, sometime outside of the tourist season. Stay tuned for more info on that!
Both the large hall and smaller back room of the church were at our disposal and they were both beautifully transformed to welcome our guest presenter and knitters who joined us from other knitting groups, most notably the Mechanicsvile library Tuesday Knitters. Demian and Stephanie took over the back room, and while we conducted normal meeting business, they converted the space into a visual color-wheel of hues and textures for our shopping pleasure. And what a pleasure it was!
Blue Heron yarn is all hand dyed in small batches or 12-15 skeins. All the yarn is sourced from the U.S. , with just a small amount of fiber sourced from Canada....a true home-grown product. One of the exceptional traits of Blue Heron yarns is the generous size of the skeins, most over 500 yards, some as much as 1000 yards, which means, in many cases, that a complete project can be finished without adding in yarn from another skein. Don't you just hate working in all those ends before you can call a project finished? That is not an issue with Blue Heron yarns.
As an added, exclusive bonus for those attending the meeting, everyone making a purchase enjoyed a generous discount. Needless to say the fiber fairly flew off the tables. Very few knitters left our meeting empty handed!
This reporter busted the yearly yarn budget for not only fiber, and a new pattern, but also some of Barbara Stone's handmade buttons! Those buttons really ratchet up the WoW! factor of any project, and they proved utterly irresistible to this color-addicted knitter. Check out these mini-works-of-art on their web page, where you can also see, in their "Gallery," some projects for sale, made with their yarns, all knit by Mrs. Stone. Demian and Stephanie brought a rack of them for us to see finished projects, for each of the types of fibers, they were offering for sale....a feast for the eyes!
As if they had not already been generous enough, Demian and Stephanie had a drawing for a free skein of yarn for each of the winners, who were....Jeri, Becky, and Elke. Lucky, lucky ladies!!!
Of course, speaking of feasts, for something as outstanding as today's meeting, in true HKG style, Becky organized a wonderful array of refreshments to especially welcome all newcomer attendees. There was everything from coffee, punch and fresh fruit bites, to Panera bagels with assorted cream cheeses, and in addition some yummy handmade jams and jellies from a man as creative with color and flavor as his wife is with color and texture....none other than Corky's other half.
Now that I've exhausted the overwhelming need to gush about our program, let me tell you about the business part of the meeting. lol
Check out below a slideshow of our meeting and fabulous program.
Business:
A special "Welcome" to our newcomer guests: Jo, Linda, Betty, Jane, Lyndsey, and Beverly. Most of these ladies are from the Tuesday Knitters group at the Mechanicsville library. We certainly hope you will come again to our meetings.
Reminder re: July 15th meeting/Picnic/Workshop at the home of Kristina Parker, 8260 Yahley Mill Rd. Henrico, VA. 23231.
We will look at and talk about knitting machines, and we will dye yarn, both animal and plant based.
What to bring:
In case you wondered.....HKG will provide napkins, plates, plastic utensils, cups, plastic table cloths. Please bring whatever serving utensil your dish needs!
About the yarn you want to dye....preferably it should be in hank form, rather than a ball.
But if it's in a ball, Kristina will have a swift to turn it back into a hank.
There are good products on Knit Picks http://www.knitpicks.com/cfSearch/Search.cfm?q=bare
Another possible suggestion: Dharma Trading for some plant based product:
http://www.dharmatrading.com/clothing/natural-yarns-for-dyeing.html
Charity:
Remember to bring any finished charity items to each meeting.
Andrée has expanded the concept of charity to her own personal mission. She intends to collect $2000 to donate to cancer research. She has participated in the Relay for Life and is still accepting donations for her Team Odie. Contact her to learn how to support her in that aspect of her goal. In addition, at our meeting, she had a display of the cancer bracelets she is making, with the proceeds all going to cancer research. The beaded bracelets, each with a dangling cancer ribbon charm, are in a variety of colors, representing the 'colors' of each type of cancer, which is explained on the card accompanying each bracelet. Sale price is only $5 for a meaningful and charming little gift. It is reasonable to expect that she will offer these for sale at each meeting until she reaches, or, knowing Andrée, probably exceeds her goal. Andrée, You go girl!
PROGRAM UPDATE:
Our field trip to Dirt Woman, in Whitestone, is ON for our August 19th meeting. Plan to eat off-site at one of the local eateries. Car pooling is recommended as parking is limited at both the shop and the local eateries.
IDEA PRESENTED:
Some of the HKG members attended a "Knit-In-Public" day at the Midlothian yarn shop, Dances with Wool. The idea was floated that we sponsor something similar. The object of the exercise is to show the public that knitting is alive and well, and a wonderful, healthy hobby to pursue. More discussion on the organization of such an event will be held at the Aug. and Sept. meetings. Here's a thought.....we could to this at the State Fair this year, or at the Powhatan Fiber Festival next year! All we'd need to arrange, beside a location, would be a roster of knitters to be present and knitting during all the open hours of the event.
Show 'n Tell:
-The stalwart Jennifer, is still working through her sampler afghan. She is currently on square #39 of 63. Your tenacity is inspirational, Jenn.
- Renée took a design class at Dances with Wool and gave us a brief description of the design process and passed around her designed item.
[Note to self: find for Renée the magazine & article about creating outside-the-box designs.]
-Elaine K. is working on a beautiful yellow, self-striping baby blanket....can't wait to see the end result.
-Barbara is almost finished with her sweater. The pieces are almost all done, now it's assembly time. Please plan to show us the finished
product next meeting, Barbara. :-) lol no pressure!
-Corky is working on a shawl called Fiori di Sole by Rosemary [Romo]Hill, the pattern is available for sale on Ravelry. Corky also showed us
two finished projects; a long crescent, lace shawlette, Sea Sunset with beads added [free on Ravelry], and a cowl....just some vacation
projects!
-Marie showed us finished, blocked projects that we had only seen previously in unblocked form. Thanks to Corky's blocking skills, we have
seen now how magnificent those finished projects are, especially the dropped stitch scarf, whose pattern Marie has been implored to share.
- Elaine B. is working on a simply constructed wrap, in hot pink, whose pattern has taught her a new cast-on, Egyptian Cast-on, and a new
stitch, Ostrich Plume stitch. In the following slideshow, see her great-niece, Hannah, model the wrap lovingly made for Hannah's first
prom, at which she was named queen. The wrap uses the Sierra pattern stitch, but made wider, with the last 6 inches of the edges sewn
together to make sleeves.
For those of you who couldn't make it, I'm sorry to say, that you missed something truly special. The consolation is that the overwhelming response was to do this again next year.
Demian Savits, owner of Blue Heron yarns, who joined us to show the latest in their yarns and patterns, was a very personable presenter. He and his delightful, birthday-girl wife, Stephanie, brought us figuratively into their studio with his detailed description of the process of dyeing their renown colorways and the story behind the beginning of Blue Heron yarns.
Did I say 'studio?" Actually the dyeing takes place in his basement!!!! This is truly one of those rare and amazing, successful family-owned and operated businesses. Something over twenty years ago, Demian's mom, Barbara Stone, was dyeing her own yarns and receiving acclaim for them. For an experiment, Demian tried selling some online with the resultant overwhelmingly popular and lucrative response. After struggling a while, trying to keep up both his post office job and the yarn business, he quit the post office to dive into the fiber world, with his mom, full time. Thus was born Blue Heron Yarns.
The company is named for the graceful birds which share home space with these fiber artists on the equally beautiful Eastern Shore of Maryland. Check their web page, www.blueheronyarns.com, for hours of business at their shop located at 8737 Brooks Dr. #108 Easton, MD 21601. For information you can also contact them at (410)819-0401 or [email protected].
There is talk of a possible HKG weekend "road trip" to Easton, true destination....Blue Heron's shop, sometime outside of the tourist season. Stay tuned for more info on that!
Both the large hall and smaller back room of the church were at our disposal and they were both beautifully transformed to welcome our guest presenter and knitters who joined us from other knitting groups, most notably the Mechanicsvile library Tuesday Knitters. Demian and Stephanie took over the back room, and while we conducted normal meeting business, they converted the space into a visual color-wheel of hues and textures for our shopping pleasure. And what a pleasure it was!
Blue Heron yarn is all hand dyed in small batches or 12-15 skeins. All the yarn is sourced from the U.S. , with just a small amount of fiber sourced from Canada....a true home-grown product. One of the exceptional traits of Blue Heron yarns is the generous size of the skeins, most over 500 yards, some as much as 1000 yards, which means, in many cases, that a complete project can be finished without adding in yarn from another skein. Don't you just hate working in all those ends before you can call a project finished? That is not an issue with Blue Heron yarns.
As an added, exclusive bonus for those attending the meeting, everyone making a purchase enjoyed a generous discount. Needless to say the fiber fairly flew off the tables. Very few knitters left our meeting empty handed!
This reporter busted the yearly yarn budget for not only fiber, and a new pattern, but also some of Barbara Stone's handmade buttons! Those buttons really ratchet up the WoW! factor of any project, and they proved utterly irresistible to this color-addicted knitter. Check out these mini-works-of-art on their web page, where you can also see, in their "Gallery," some projects for sale, made with their yarns, all knit by Mrs. Stone. Demian and Stephanie brought a rack of them for us to see finished projects, for each of the types of fibers, they were offering for sale....a feast for the eyes!
As if they had not already been generous enough, Demian and Stephanie had a drawing for a free skein of yarn for each of the winners, who were....Jeri, Becky, and Elke. Lucky, lucky ladies!!!
Of course, speaking of feasts, for something as outstanding as today's meeting, in true HKG style, Becky organized a wonderful array of refreshments to especially welcome all newcomer attendees. There was everything from coffee, punch and fresh fruit bites, to Panera bagels with assorted cream cheeses, and in addition some yummy handmade jams and jellies from a man as creative with color and flavor as his wife is with color and texture....none other than Corky's other half.
Now that I've exhausted the overwhelming need to gush about our program, let me tell you about the business part of the meeting. lol
Check out below a slideshow of our meeting and fabulous program.
Business:
A special "Welcome" to our newcomer guests: Jo, Linda, Betty, Jane, Lyndsey, and Beverly. Most of these ladies are from the Tuesday Knitters group at the Mechanicsville library. We certainly hope you will come again to our meetings.
Reminder re: July 15th meeting/Picnic/Workshop at the home of Kristina Parker, 8260 Yahley Mill Rd. Henrico, VA. 23231.
We will look at and talk about knitting machines, and we will dye yarn, both animal and plant based.
What to bring:
- Wear clothes you don't mind messing up if you are dyeing...an apron is a good idea.
- yarn to dye - see below
- plastic bags in which to take your wet yarn home
- a picnic dish to share. She has outlets for crock pots and an oven if something needs to be kept warm.
- a lawn chair....we can eat outdoors or indoors....but she doesn't have seating to accommodate us all...just a big open room.
- coolers & ice for anything that needs refrigeration and your own drink(s)
In case you wondered.....HKG will provide napkins, plates, plastic utensils, cups, plastic table cloths. Please bring whatever serving utensil your dish needs!
About the yarn you want to dye....preferably it should be in hank form, rather than a ball.
But if it's in a ball, Kristina will have a swift to turn it back into a hank.
There are good products on Knit Picks http://www.knitpicks.com/cfSearch/Search.cfm?q=bare
Another possible suggestion: Dharma Trading for some plant based product:
http://www.dharmatrading.com/clothing/natural-yarns-for-dyeing.html
Charity:
Remember to bring any finished charity items to each meeting.
Andrée has expanded the concept of charity to her own personal mission. She intends to collect $2000 to donate to cancer research. She has participated in the Relay for Life and is still accepting donations for her Team Odie. Contact her to learn how to support her in that aspect of her goal. In addition, at our meeting, she had a display of the cancer bracelets she is making, with the proceeds all going to cancer research. The beaded bracelets, each with a dangling cancer ribbon charm, are in a variety of colors, representing the 'colors' of each type of cancer, which is explained on the card accompanying each bracelet. Sale price is only $5 for a meaningful and charming little gift. It is reasonable to expect that she will offer these for sale at each meeting until she reaches, or, knowing Andrée, probably exceeds her goal. Andrée, You go girl!
PROGRAM UPDATE:
Our field trip to Dirt Woman, in Whitestone, is ON for our August 19th meeting. Plan to eat off-site at one of the local eateries. Car pooling is recommended as parking is limited at both the shop and the local eateries.
IDEA PRESENTED:
Some of the HKG members attended a "Knit-In-Public" day at the Midlothian yarn shop, Dances with Wool. The idea was floated that we sponsor something similar. The object of the exercise is to show the public that knitting is alive and well, and a wonderful, healthy hobby to pursue. More discussion on the organization of such an event will be held at the Aug. and Sept. meetings. Here's a thought.....we could to this at the State Fair this year, or at the Powhatan Fiber Festival next year! All we'd need to arrange, beside a location, would be a roster of knitters to be present and knitting during all the open hours of the event.
Show 'n Tell:
-The stalwart Jennifer, is still working through her sampler afghan. She is currently on square #39 of 63. Your tenacity is inspirational, Jenn.
- Renée took a design class at Dances with Wool and gave us a brief description of the design process and passed around her designed item.
[Note to self: find for Renée the magazine & article about creating outside-the-box designs.]
-Elaine K. is working on a beautiful yellow, self-striping baby blanket....can't wait to see the end result.
-Barbara is almost finished with her sweater. The pieces are almost all done, now it's assembly time. Please plan to show us the finished
product next meeting, Barbara. :-) lol no pressure!
-Corky is working on a shawl called Fiori di Sole by Rosemary [Romo]Hill, the pattern is available for sale on Ravelry. Corky also showed us
two finished projects; a long crescent, lace shawlette, Sea Sunset with beads added [free on Ravelry], and a cowl....just some vacation
projects!
-Marie showed us finished, blocked projects that we had only seen previously in unblocked form. Thanks to Corky's blocking skills, we have
seen now how magnificent those finished projects are, especially the dropped stitch scarf, whose pattern Marie has been implored to share.
- Elaine B. is working on a simply constructed wrap, in hot pink, whose pattern has taught her a new cast-on, Egyptian Cast-on, and a new
stitch, Ostrich Plume stitch. In the following slideshow, see her great-niece, Hannah, model the wrap lovingly made for Hannah's first
prom, at which she was named queen. The wrap uses the Sierra pattern stitch, but made wider, with the last 6 inches of the edges sewn
together to make sleeves.