Welcome, Fall!

The crisp  autumn air brings out the knitter -- or crocheter-- in all of us!  Both of our September meetings were well-attended.  The first meeting took place during Labor Day weekend.  Nine stalwarts took a break from barbecues and other festivities to share their love of the craft with Debbie, one of our newest members who is learning to knit with us. 

In addition, Mary (moi!) finally completed the gray, black and white crocheted shawl  using yarn provided by Anne.

The  second (and last) September meeting was held on 9/19.  So many members joined us that we relocated to the church itself:

Debbie (front row, left) continues to show amazing progress as she learns to knit.  Mary -- the knitting and crochet doctor -- provided assistance in interpreting pattern instructions.   And, three more completed  shawls were donated by our members:

Our next meeting is at 1:00 PM on Saturday, October 3 -- feel free to join the crew!

Knit? Crochet? ...or Want to Learn How?

Would you like to knit or crochet something beautiful and help others at the same time -- but you don't how? Or perhaps it's been several years since you've juggled knitting needles or wielded a crochet hook. Join us at our next meeting (Saturday August 15) and we'll be glad to help you. We always have extra yarn and can scrounge up hooks and needles. So make some new friends and learn some new skills -- you'll be glad you did!

More from Our August 1st Meeting

The third shawl donated at our last meeting was a beautiful one knitted by Marie, using a variegated yarn of cool purples, pinks, gold and green with a simple textured pattern:

Marie is among the knitters hard at work. Here she is, second from right, with Ethel (one of our new members), Evelyn and Elayne:

At the other end of the table, Elizabeth (creator of the blue and cream shawls in our last post) is with Debbie (center) and Marion right). Debbie is another new member, just learning to knit, and proudly displays her first rows of bright purple knitting after Marion showed her the basics!

New Members, More Projects

While a number of our members were off on holiday for the second meeting in July (7/18), we rebounded on August 1st. Father Greg joined eleven Trinity knitters as we worked on various projects -- prayer shawls, seaman's scarves, afghans and afghan squares.

We discussed several charities that we will be contributing to this year. In addition to our shawls, we are once again working on hats and scarves for the Seaman's Institute Christmas at Sea Program. A newsletter describing the program (and including a knit and a crochet pattern for using scrap yarn) is available on the website.

Another organization we are supporting is the Orphan Foundation of America (OFA). The Foundation has been active since 1981 in helping children move from foster care into successful careers. It provides foster youth with scholarships, internships, mentoring and care packages. An important part of this is Red Scarf Project. As the website states, it is "a great charitable knitting intiative" providing warmth and encouragement to foster youths. Beginning in 2005, the OFA began taking donations of handmade red scarves to put into Valentine's Day Care Packages. This year red scarves can be submitted between September 1 and December 15th, so we will have guidelines and patterns available at our next meeting (August 15).

Our meeting concluded with three beautiful shawls. A pale blue knitted shawl and a creamy crocheted lace were made by Elizabeth, who had also contributed a shawl at the July 18th meeting. Photos of the two from this meeting are below, while a photo and description of Marie's shawl will appear in our next post!

Next Meeting: July 18th!

Because we meet on the first and third Saturday of the month and the first Saturday of July was the holiday weekend, we are having only one meeting this month. As usual, it begins at 1 P.M. at Trinity Church (5th Street and Broadway, Bayonne).

In the meantime, a few of our hardworking members are shown above knitting at Dorothy's last January. Our leader and hostess Dorothy is at the left, with Marion (center) and Agnes (right).

Knitting Not Just at Trinity

One of the nicest things about belonging to Tightly Knit is the friendships developed among group members. Dorothy is our leader and organizer. For the past several years she's hosted an evening by her fireplace, where we knit and crochet by a crackling fire. This year, she also had a second "knit in" in early January to enjoy the fireplace and the joys of Christmas , while we worked at our shawls and scarves.

My First Shawl for the Ministry

While I made a Seaman's Scarf and Hat for last year's Christmas at Sea program, the Shaded Triangles Wrap made of Lion Brand Homespun is my first shawl . Knit entirely in garter stitch, it had enough shaping (picking up a new triangle along the side of the current one) to keep me from being bored. I also made it five triangles long, instead of seven and used the balance of the yarn to crochet a broad border of single and double crochet. This broadened the shawl, with the added width providing a more balanced look and also gave it a nice finish. The shade is "Waterfall" and made me think of the Monet poster from an exhibition at the Met.