The Center for Knit and Crochet (CKC) is delighted to announce that Karen D. Kendrick-Hands, CKC’s founder, and an active member of CKC’s board of directors, has donated $5,000 to the CKC – a donation that has made it possible for the CKC to apply to receive additional funds from a matching donations program.  Kendrick-Hands is an attorney, community activist and lifelong, obsessive knitter: artisan, published designer, retailer and educational consultant. Inspired in part by quilt collections and study centers, and spurred by the limited access to knitting and crochet in existing museum and research settings, she initiated the CKC’s founding symposium in 2012; she has called her recent donation “seed money for those of us who revere knitting and crochet and wish to both preserve and promote these arts.”

In that spirit, the CKC will use this generous donation to research the technical expertise, hardware, software, and institutional partnerships needed to develop and maintain an online resource of high-quality digital images.  CKC goal is to catalogue records of knitted and crocheted objects in CKC collections, affiliate museum/library collections, and personal collections, embedded in a secure, searchable database.  The CKC is currently developing a uniform, technically accurate, user-friendly, standardized nomenclature for knitting and crochet that will assist users in searching its images and records.

The CKC recently launched its inaugural online exhibition, “Sanquhar Gloves: A Living Scottish Tradition”.  Curated by Dr. Angharad Thomas and Beth Brown-Reinsel, this exhibition is the first of many, and an example of the high-quality content that the CKC foresees sharing in the future.  Kendrick-Hands’ gift is timely, greatly appreciated, and will be used to propel CKC forward toward its goals in 2016.

You, too, can help the CKC realize an online museum to preserve and promote the art, craft, and scholarship of knitting, crochet, and related arts.  Please go to http://centerforknitandcrochet.org/donate/ to make a donation or to http://centerforknitandcrochet.org/charter-membership/ to become a CKC member.