In the Loop, December 2023
December 2023
Dear CKC Members and Donors:
As 2023 comes to an end, we thank you for being a part of the CKC community, and for your enduring support. We couldn’t do any of this without you.
We hope you will enjoy CKC’s December news: an announcement of new Board positions (get involved!), our progress on end-of-year fundraising (more than 75% there!), links to two charming and fun free patterns, and information about the wonderful Virtual Craft Circle programs and other activities and events we are bringing you in 2024.
We close each newsletter with the latest news about knitting and crochet from around the world, brought to you by the incomparable Anne Lies.
Wishing you Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year!!
All of Us at CKC
Clockwise from top left: Elizabeth Okeyele-Olatundi of Nigeria is teaching 20,000 Children Across the African Continent to Knit; Doily Historian Suzann Thompson’s fiber artwork “Afternoon,” 2015; Native American Flute virtuoso and poet Sandi Horton; Kirk Dunn of Toronto, Canada shares his knitted “stained glass tapestries” and performance art.
Join the CKC Board!
We’re Adding Two New Directors in 2024
We are expanding the current Board of Directors from nine to eleven volunteers in 2024. The two new Directors will focus on developing CKC’s social media reach and membership.
We encourage all CKC Members to consider Board service. We’ll share more details on how to apply for these new positions early in 2024.
Please direct any questions you have now about the positions or the application process to Nominating Committee Chair Marilyn Huset at [email protected], and stay tuned for more information.
Update on CKC’s Annual Fundraising Campaign
Your donation in any amount will help sustain CKC and the future of knitting and crochet preservation. If you can, please donate today to support CKC’s current and future programs, exhibitions, and collections. You won’t regret it.
Can you help?
We have just $860 to go to meet our goal.
VIRTUAL CRAFT CIRCLE NEWS & EVENTS
An Evening with SANDI HORTON, December 2023
Everyone who attended the Virtual Craft Circle featuring Sandi Horton on December 14 experienced a real treat. Sandi won Second Place in the Center for Knit and Crochet’s Music Makers Knit Purl Jam & Acoustic Crochet Competition, with percussionist Debbie Brock.
Sandi spoke about her family heritage of doily making, her collaborations with Suzann Thompson on the Texas Crochet History exhibition, and more. She played beautiful, haunting carols she had arranged for her handmade Native American flutes, and read several of her own poems. It was an amazing way to close our first year of this virtual gathering. Thank you, Sandi!
VIRTUAL CRAFT CIRCLE in 2024
There will be a Virtual Craft Circle EVERY MONTH in 2024. Some sessions will have guest speakers and others will be open for chatting. You can see what’s coming up, register for future programs, and see our past guest speakers too, on CKC’s new Virtual Craft Circle page.
Registration links for these upcoming programs will be posted soon.
February 2024 — Jayna Zweiman, Welcome Blanket Project
March 2024 — Rebecca Bayreuther Donohue, Dirty Blue Shirts Living History,”Knit So As to Turn Water: The History of New England’s Maritime Knitting”
Join us on January 18 for CKC’s first Virtual Craft Circle of 2024 — The Anniversary Shawl-Along Big Reveal.
Bring or wear your 10th Anniversary Shawls — or just come to enjoy the company, and see what others have made. We’ll drink a toast to 2024, preview CKC’s upcoming activities, chat, and get to know each other.
If you have finished your CKC 10th Anniversary Shawl you can enter a drawing to win your choice of yarns. One yarn offered will be suitable for knitting the beautiful new Finnley Shawl, a shawl designed for CKC’s 10th Anniversary by CKC Member, Denise Bartels. This exclusive pattern will soon be FREE to Members and Donors. Thank you, Denise!
Date: Thursday, January 18, 2023
Time: 8-9:30 PM Eastern; 7-8:30 PM Central; 6-7:30 PM Mountain; 5-6:30 Pacific.
Your Host: Lori Winterfeldt, CKC Board Member
Introducing CKC’s Finnley Shawl, photo and design © Denise Bartels, 2023
CKC TO ATTEND VOGUE KNITTING LIVE IN NYC, January 25-28, 2024
CKC will attend Vogue Knitting Live in New York City, January 25-28, 2024 as a featured nonprofit. At this event, CKC can share its expanding digital resources, programs, and activities with hundreds of makers in person, and recruit members, Board members, and volunteers.
Jennifer Lindsay, CKC President, will participate in a panel discussion led by Knit The Rainbow’s Founder, Board Chair, and President, Austin Rivers, who will be a guest speaker at CKC’s Virtual Craft Circle in April 2024.
If you are planning to attend, and want to volunteer at CKC’s table, please get in touch with us at [email protected], We’d love to meet you and we can use the help! We can offer free passes to the Marketplace for one or two volunteers. We’ll share additional details soon.
Holiday Collections Spotlight
FREE Granny “Square” Stocking Ornament & More
Photos and ornament by Marilyn Huset
Enjoy a gift from us — the Granny “Square” Stocking Ornament — ca. 1960s, originally added to CKC’s digital collection by Marilyn Huset. You can copy and save this pattern from our website right now.
After the holidays, you can still use the “square,” which is folded to make the ornament, to make an endless variety of wonderful projects. Read the story of this ornament in the pattern itself, and see the original ornaments in CKC’s Crowdsourced Collection.
CKC Member News! Lots O’ Love Blanket
Knitting & Crochet in the News:
Lots O’ Love mosaic knit blanket. Photo from the KnitPicks® website used with permission.
KnitPicks® is offering a free pattern download of Lots O’ Love, a mosaic knit blanket in two sizes, designed by CKC Board Member Suzann Thompson. Suzann writes, “One of Barbara G. Walker’s books introduced me to slipped-stitch color knitting, or mosaic knitting, in the 1980s. I was fascinated by the technique. After figuring out the quirks of mosaic knitting charts, I started charting my own.”
Congratulations, Suzann!
Download the free pattern from KnitPicks®
Membership Corner
- As a CKC Member, you are vital to CKC’s success. If you are interested in volunteering, contact us at [email protected], for more information and to learn about opportunities.
- To those who already volunteer — Thank You!
- Is your membership current? Check and to check that and renew!
Don’t Be Shy! Share Your News!!!
- Have you designed a new pattern, written an article, been invited to give a presentation, published a book, started a new craft group or craft initiative, been promoted in your guild? Do you want to engage other CKC Members in what you are doing or in an event in your area? If you are interested in being featured, or have some news or events to share with CKC Members, fill out the form!
Knitting and Crochet in the News
By Anne Lies
Seasonal shenanigans
- Stolen Christmas ‘yarn bombs’ returned a year later. Playing the long game, or were they just trying to get their names off the Naughty list?
- Knitting in the Movies: A Look at Iconic Knitting Scenes. Winter is streaming season.
- Okay… it’s not exactly recent news, but this is an epic, snowy sheep rescue. Photo shoot turns into woolly rescue mission.
Knitting doings
- Knitting History forum annual conference 2024. An annual roundup of knitting techniques and traditions.
- Visit Clara Parkes’s YouTube channel. The Wool Channel.
- Miss Manners: It takes hard work to become an accomplished fiber artist, not luck. Miss Manners weighs in on something we hear all too often.
Major projects
- Awe inspiring: In ‘Wharenui Harikoa,’ Lissy & Rudi Crochet a Māori ‘House of Joy’ From 5,000 Balls of Wool.
- Maker assembles dress from hundreds of crowdsourced crocheted flowers. Sometimes it takes a village to make a dress.
- There’s a lot of ‘Yarn’ at the Little Falls Public Library. “That’s the big question – what can you do with who you are and what you have?”
- Artist Combines Old and New Techniques to Create Vibrant Knit Portraits.
Other uses for fiber
- mischer’traxler studio. The idea of a Tree.
- Adding a Tactile Touch: Textile Art to Inspire Your Interiors.
Making makes a difference
- How learning how to knit has helped with my anxiety.
- DeKalb STEM students crochet plastic bags into beds, blankets for those in need.
- The book t
Your Voice Matters!
We encourage all CKC Members to contribute to CKC’s monthly newsletter. Please email your inquiries, ideas, and stories to [email protected]. We hope to hear from you!
Please visit CKC’s Newsletter Archive!
December Newsletter Contributors:
Katie Daugherty, Marilyn Huset, Anne Lies, and Jennifer Lindsay
