Knit Natters' Knit-In

We started yesterday about 9 a.m., just setting up machines in a very large room at Crystal Lake Baptist Church in Leander, Texas.  This is the second time Crystal Lake Baptist has let us use space, and once again, we had two big rooms and their kitchen.


Pat knitting on a bulky and 2 E6s ready to use

Sara, keeping the electric winder busy

I brought a friend, Laura, who hadn't ever knitted but was willing to wind yarn - or whatever - to help us make things for the troops.  Laura had already made dozens of fleece scarves, which are also going to this project.  Barbara and Carl were there, having already been very hard at work delivering perhaps five huge tables of cone yarn, which they are selling for an old friend who used to be a dealer in Temple, and bringing and setting up three machines plus food for lunch.  I brought two machines and bags and bags of junk I thought we might need.  I thought we might somehow run out of yarn.  Not likely, since everyone who came brought yarn.  If we had a knit-in once a week for the next three months, we might knit up all the yarn we brought yesterday!


Laura running manual winder

Sylvia and her husband Doug set up her Brother 260 (punch card bulky) in the corner, and she dug in with my new lined slipper pattern. 

Carl and Doug kept helping knitters with machines and tables.  After a while we had the large room filled with machines and activity.  Bea, Margareth, and Tiffany manned the Passap E6000s, making the fastest slippers, an English Rib pattern that Barbara has down to a science (it's fast, and you make strings of slippers, but you have to add sewing time later).  Tiffany (age 9) has that pattern memorized and kept rattling off the lock settings for Margareth.  I ran my mid-gauge, and part of the day, my bulky in between answering pattern questions.  Pat set up a bulky machine and her daughter Sara got busy with the electric yarn winder, and Laura was working the manual yarn winder, getting us fixed with yarn.  Rose and Mary brought bulkies, too, and cranked out slippers. 



Laura, knitting the first time ever

As the day wore on, Laura, Stacy, Sara and I were sewing slippers, but we had so many slippers to sew that Barbara ended up taking a pile home to sew later.  Several people had brought slippers already made or ready to sew.  At noon, we took a break, and the pastor prayed over lunch, which was burgers from chef Carl and all sorts of potluck goodies the knitters brought, plates of fruit, cakes, a pie, brownies, veggies, potato salad, and muffins.  In his blessing, Pastor Michael referred to our "knitting ministry," and we were excited to think of it that way.



Laura's First Slipper

At some point, I arm-twisted Laura into trying knitting, and she's a natural.  She made some English Rib slippers on the bulky, and I took a picture of her knitting and a picture with her first-ever knitted slipper. 
I didn't take nearly enough pictures.  Many of the best pictures are on other people's cameras, but I'm sharing the ones I did get.  We were goofing around and cutting up, and Carl got some of that on videotape.  I was busy knitting, not the worst excuse for not taking more pictures. 

At the end of the day, we posed as a group, holding gifts for the troops.  Barbara told me this morning that she has 83 pairs of slippers, ready to go. 


 

Back row - Sara, Rose, Stacy, Mary Diana, Pat, Bea; middle row, Sylvia, Tiffany, Barbara, Laura; in front, Margareth