UFOs at Epping Library!!

That's right, folks - believe it or not we get UFOs at the Library!! For those who are disbelievers, sceptics or otherwise unimpressed, you obviously are not knitters (or quilters or ...). UFO is an acronym for "UnFinished Object" - not the other sort that flies ;o)

UFOs often land in our laps from donations of knitting that has been started and abandoned - a not unknown happening. Sometimes we all lose interest in things, especially if they are not going well; sometimes other things take priority. There are times when we receive knitting because of downsizing, illness and sadly when a loved one passes away. We are always grateful for these donations and thank all of you who have donated to the group. We rely on the generosity of others for a lot of the yarn in our rugs.

Sometimes we can use the UFO as is - incorporating it into a rug with additional knitted squares; sometimes we need to start from scratch  -  undo the UFO and reknit the yarn into a rug, with or without additional yarn. If the UFO is a partially knitted garment, we do our best to complete it  and it then goes to Mahboba's Promise for women and children in need in Afghanistan.  Our member, Doreen, is a whizz at this.

I thought you might be interested to see the process of making a rug from one such UFO. We received a partially completed rug recently, along with some squares of varying sizes. The yarn used was quite light and had been knitted on largish needles so the squares were stretching out of shape causing a number of problems including reducing the warmth of the rug and making it hard to piece together.

The first task was to wash the knitting - it had been in a plastic bag for some time and was a little bit musty - and dry it.

I'll keep you up to date at each stage of the rug making process  - watch this space!

TIP: When washing yarn that has in storage for some time and smells a little musty, add bicarbonate of soda to the rinse water - I use a couple of tablespoons. When it dries, the yarn will smell fresh again. This also works for clothing etc that has been in storage, and when wet washing has become smelly waiting for a sunny day.

Square dancing in the library ...

That's right, but not the musical kind! Today Genny, Shirley, and Val, our square wranglers,  made a valiant effort to sort, match and make up into rug lots, the more than 300 squares which have accumulated in the librarian's office. This involves much spreading out on the library floor, getting down on hands and knees and moving squares hither and thither amid calls of - "the yellow one looks wrong!" or 'how about we put this group with that". It is a very thankless task -  no two people knit their squares to the exact same measurement - some are knitted lengthways, some mitred, some sideways and some any which way.  The end result was 8 piles of squares tied together in rug lots with a few extras included to play with, and a pile marked "challenges" - somehow, somewhere, sometime, other squares will turn up which "go" with this pile of lonely squares.

Out of respect for the ungainly nature of this "dancing" there is no photo of the wranglers in action!  Instead, a few more photos of rugs that have been made up:

And some of the items that have gone to Winter Warm - beanies and more beanies:

We meet again ...

So ....  we had the first meeting of the new year last Thursday. School holidays are always a quiet time - many of us have baby-sitting duties, so it was great to see thirteen people around the table, including Sally (Ravelry name: Pompom) and Jennifer (Ravelry name: mk1k1). And both came bearing gifts of wool for the group - thank you!

We have been very lucky lately, with a large donation of yarn  from Cecilia (Ravelry name: Cecilia1) and the first of the yarn purchased with our grant from the North Epping Bendigo Community Bank. This leads us to an interesting dilemma - despite having many "famines", we now have a "feast", and the dilemma is where do we keep all these goodies? The librarians office is currently bursting at the seams with our rugs for Wrap With Love,  our knits for Winter Warm, and our stash of yarn.

I'm constantly amazed at the good humour shown by the library staff in the face of this takeover of their precious office space!  One way we can reduce the clutter in the office, is to send our completed wraps off to Wrap with Love as they are finished, rather than holding them until the ABC Knit In at Hornsby Library in August. We all love the feeling of presenting a huge pile of rugs in one hit, but our egos have to take a back seat here, so we had a working bee on Thursday  to sew labels on the completed rugs and to photograph them for our scrap book. I'll be posting photos of the completed rugs so that you can see them - in the meantime, this is the pile that have gone off to the warehouse - 27 rugs in all:

We also have two bags of clothes on the way to Winter Warm via Sally. So that frees quite a lot of space for our new goodies. We will spend some time this week sorting out the old stash - there is quite a lot of yarn there that is "desperation yarn" - only used when there is absolutely  nothing else, so that can can be stored in someone's garage in strong garbage bags until we are desperate again!

Later this week, we may be able to show you some photos of the beautiful yarn that Cecilia donated.

Our last day for 2009 ....

Hasn't the year gone quickly - a flurry of yarn and knitting needles, a mountain of wraps and children's clothing, the ABC Knit-In  -  and it's Christmas!

Today was the last day on our knitting calendar until Thursday, January 14th 2010. Time to say thank you to all those people who have supported us during the year -

• first, the wonderful librarians at Epping Library who tolerate our laughter and noise ("no, it's not a problem - we need some livening up!"), reserve our tables for us each Thursday, use some of their valuable photocopying budget to copy information sheets for us, and generally help us by carrying boxes of wool and wraps in and out of the office. A special thank you to Mani who is the official Knitting Group librarian, and to the Senior Librarian Sue, whose office is disappearing under the myriad wraps, clothes and yarn that our busy knitters keep churning out.

• Thank you also to those many unknown people who drop squares, wraps and wool donations into us. 

• Many thanks  to the Ravelers, Janette, Witty Knitter, Sandrah, and Cecilia1 who have very generously donated large amounts of yarn from their stashes, or from other sources, to the group. Their donations  always seemed to arrive just as we'd reach desperation point.

• More thanks to the owners of our two local yarn stores - Sue of Cherryhills at Pennant Hills and Ra of Yarns and Gifts at Beecroft - who donated wonderful lucky door prizes for our end-of-year party - your gifts were greatly appreciated by the lucky winners.

• A very special  thanks to the North Epping Bendigo Community Bank -  who awarded us a grant of $500 to supplement our yarn purchases. We have yet to use the grant, but you will hear more about it when we have  photos of our "booty" to show you. It will make a huge difference to our  group.

• Thank you also to Hornsby Shire Council who gave all the members of the group a basket of chocolates for Christmas  - an unexpected surprise for us all - with much happy munching ensuing. 

• Last, but not least, many thanks to the wonderful members of our group who knit, chat,  teach each other knitting and crochet techniques, share stories and wisdom, translate for group members and interested library members who don't speak English, and offer support during those moments of life that happen to all of us from time to time - you are a great group. My life is enriched for knowing you all. 

So, the Epping Library Knitters  wish you all a very happy and peaceful end of year break and a very happy New Year.


We hope to see you in the New Year!

Anyone for a sewing bee?

We can all look forward to a giant sewing bee, as yesterday I received a donation of 220 squares from one of the women who lives in my unit complex. Thank you Laraine and the many people you know who have knitted this enormous pile of squares! How generous people are with their time and labour.

These squares will make  8 wraps once we add a few squares from  the stockpile we have knitted ourselves.