Millicent’s News

February 2009

 

Millicent’s Yarns & More

27 N. Centre Street, Cumberland, MD 21502

301-722-8100 or www.millicentsyarns.com

 

 Shop Hours:  Tues - Sat 10-5, Wed 10-7, Sun 1-4

Closed all Mondays and Sundays, February 1 and 22

  DEMONSTRATION:  CIRCULAR SOCK MACHINE

On Sunday, February 8 (snow date: Feb 15) between 1 and 4 o’clock, Kim Garvey of Hanover, PA, will be at Millicent’s to demonstrate the Circular Sock Machine.  These vintage sock knitting machines were first used in the 1830’s right up to the 1920’s and crank out a pair of socks before you can say “Bob’s your uncle.”  They can still be found today, although it takes a bit of hunting.  There are enough people devoted to and using these machines that they have banded together to form a Circular Sock Machine Association with its own annual convention.

 

Kim Garver has an engineering background.  After developing Lyme disease five years ago, she picked up knitting to occupy her mind.  She now hand dyes sock yarn (some of which we sell at our shop), spins, and has become a proponent of the circular sock machine after purchasing her first one two years ago.  She teaches the ways of the machine at her home where her husband repairs the many machines they have since collected.  Kim is now a full-fledged “fiber-holic,” she tells me, and visits Millicent’s whenever she visits her sister-in-law in Cumberland.

 

Kim will knit a pair of socks and a pair of wristlets while she is here.  One of the pair will even have cables!  She will also bring a second machine for people to try.  Please bring, or purchase, a sport or DK weight yarn (like Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport) for your trial.  So drop on in and watch – it will be interesting.

 

SPINNING WORKSHOP

Maureen Pritchard is offering a two-week spinning workshop at Millicent’s on Saturday, Feb 21 and 28, from noon to 2:00.  Your fee is $40 for the two sessions.  Maureen has taught spinning at Millicent’s for many years now, each time converting more people to the joys of spinning.  Maureen lives in Romney and raises her own sheep and sheep dogs, dyes and spins her own yarn, and knits beautiful sweaters and vests with her yarn.  She is a popular vendor at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Show and other fiber shows in the Mid-Atlantic area, and is known as an excellent teacher.  To attend the spinning workshop, please call Millicent’s Yarns & More at 301-722-8100.  We will need to know if you have a working spinning wheel, or if you will need to borrow one.

 

BONUS DOLLARS

Your bonus dollars have been reckoned.  If you have not already spent them for this year, please know that they are waiting for you. Starting this year, 2009, we are beginning a new Bonus program. All customers have a goal of $250 dollars.  Once that goal is reached (and the computer will know when—isn’t that wonderful?) you will receive notice of a 2% or $5.00 bonus credit which can be used on your next purchase.  You will receive a bonus each time you reach $250, even if it takes years.  I think this bonus system will be a win-win:  you’ll get a larger bonus more often, and we have our computer working diligently for us (isn’t that what it’s supposed to do?)

 

MONTHLY KNITTING CLUB, (a.k.a. The Block of the Month Club)

We’ve had our first Block meeting the first week in January, a theory discussion of how to read cable charts, and more specifically, how to read the patterns and charts in our designated book:  The Great American Aran Afghan, by XRX, who publishes Knitter’s Magazine.  The three gatherings were well attended and helpful, I hope, for everyone.  

 

Please join us for our next meetings (come one of the two times) on Wednesday afternoon, February 4, at 2:00 or Wednesday evening, February 4, at 5:00 pm. (Sorry, I will have the shop closed on Sunday, Feb. 1 as it my birthday and my husband PROMISED me a day away from Cumberland!). 

 

We will begin our first square in February:  Carol Adams square on pp. 22 - 23.  Be prepared to spend time analyzing the charts and instructions as a group.  It would be beneficial to cast on the number of stitches for Block 1 (you’ll find the number in the Paragraph labeled “Square”, and knit the three ridges or six rows to set you up.  You might also want to be prepared by copying and enlarging your charts, putting them in sequence, and having your markers for your charts and your knitting ready.   The designer asks that you knit on a size 6 needle for her square – consider your personal tension before choosing your needle size.

 

Here are the blocks we will knit in sequence:

MARCH pp.34-35 Strong                               APRIL  pp. 8-9  Morioka

MAY pp. 14-15 Belanger                                JUNE  pp.4-5  Levy

JULY pp. 44-45 McIntire  (Okay, it’s a toss-up with pp. 32-33 Burns)

 

Do you want to join in?  Great!  You can find the details about the Block of the Month Club in our January 2009 newsletter.

 

CONVERTING METERS TO YARDS

So much yarn comes in from Europe and Asia, and their ball labels show amount of yarn in meters rather than yards.  An easy conversion method is to add 10% to the meters to get the approximate number of yards.  Ninety meters would equal approximately ninety-nine yards then.

 

WHAT DOES THAT LITTLE GRID ON THE BALL LABEL MEAN?

The little square that is divided by vertical and horizontal lines is an international method of communicating gauge information.  The number found on the bottom of the grid indicates the number of stitches over 4 inches (same as 10 centimeters).  You’ll see, for example, 18sts or 18M (M stands for Maschen which is German for stitches) below the grid. Your gauge per inch then is 18 divided by 4 or 4.5 stitches per inch.  Easy, right?

 

KNITTING IN MEETINGS: RULES OF ETIQUETTE (yuck, yuck)

(From Knitter’s Magazine, Winter 2006)

 

One

Life is too full of meetings and all of the meetings are too long.  All meetings would be better if they were shorter, and many would be better still if they didn’t happen.  Give yourself virtue points for attending meetings when you have to, and for maintaining your sweetness of character, and for all manifestations of courtesy which take place in the setting of the meeting.

 

Two

People who love meetings are dangerous—to themselves and to others and to institutions—and those are invariably the people who will complain about your knitting.

 

Three

Checking one’s e-mail on a blackberry or other handheld device during a meeting is astonishingly rude, easily ten times more problematic than knitting; therefore, every time you see someone do this, consider yourself entitled to knit in the next ten meetings you attend.

 

Four

Only the knitters are actually listening.  Of course, I don’t actually know whether this is true; I only know that when I’m not knitting, I’m less likely to be listening, and I tend to generalize. 

 

Five

Sometimes the knitters aren’t listening either.  Yes, it needs to be admitted.  Simple straightforward knitting does help me concentrate, but there are pitfalls—sometimes I get to the interesting part, where I’m decreasing at both neck side and armhole side for my cardigan front, or the pattern has just picked up in complexity, and instead of putting down the project, especially if the meeting is boring, I just let the meeting go.  Okay, I’ve confessed.  There are some meetings, where even knitting is not enough to keep me focused.  But I’m working on it—I figure that since knitting is my yoga, my meditation technique, I can hope to grow more skilled and more sophisticated and more able to concentrate my mind.

 

Six

If you are actually running the meeting, you probably shouldn’t knit.  Now, I am sure there are people out there with the presence and the strength of character to do this, and I wouldn’t mind hearing from them, but I am prepared to put down my knitting if I am actually in charge.  There is a price to be paid for power, and heavy lies the head that wears the crown and all that—but more to the point, if I am running the meeting, I can bring it to an end, and then maybe I can go into my office for a few minutes and knit.

 

 Seven

If you are not running the meeting, find a buddy if at all possible.  Yes, there are risks—sometimes your colleagues will tolerate a single eccentric knitter, but put two side by side and you start to hear remarks like, “what is this, the sewing circle?”  (And let me say in passing that I bet a sewing circle was a particularly useful form of meeting, and I bet no one ever worried that because a lady was doing fancy sewing, she was therefore not able to pay full attention to gossip). 

 

Eight

You know this one: ask a question or make a comment and do it early.  You need to let people know that yes, you are actively listening (well, of course you are actively listening, you’re being more active while you’re listening than anyone else in the room, darn it!)  The absolute best way to do this is to ask a slightly hostile cranky question, or make a slightly barbed comment, so the person running the meeting has to be glad that you are knitting, and hopeful that perhaps the knitting will distract your keen and insightful and hard-edged intelligence enough so that you don’t make trouble later on, no matter how dumb the meeting turns out to be.  The problem for me, of course, is that knitting in meetings makes me much less cranky and hostile, though my insightful and hard-edged intelligence of course remains intact; it’s easier for me to come up with those barbed comments if I’m not knitting, because if I’m not knitting, I’m sitting there thinking about how much I hate meetings.

 

Nine

Keep it simple.  Yes, I have seen people spread out a pattern, a stitch counter, five bobbins, a cable needle, and three contrasting skeins on the table, and then go on to participate handily in the conversation, while working their way through a pattern of surpassing complexity.  I honor their brains and energy, but I still suggest keeping it simple, not too much equipment, not too much drama.

 

Ten

Be ready for the occasional, unexpected, moment of knitting-in-meetings joy.  The moment when your brain is at its best—when the knitting part is moving along in happy motoric serenity, forming a pattern which sets your whole neurologic system humming, and you find yourself understanding and even appreciating the subject under discussion at the meeting (and how often in life does that happen?)  And all of a sudden, you feel a sense of deep gratitude to be in your own life—to be here with these colleagues, embarked upon this enterprise together, understanding one another, and row by row, getting something done.

 

Knit on, knit on . . .

Mel, Dick, Judith, Jola, Geni and Joanna

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Millicent's Knits and Yarns • 49 North Centre Street • Cumberland, Maryland 21502
phone 301-722-8100 • mel@millicentsyarns.com