It was the official last class of the spring session and also presentation night. We spent most of the class learning about each president or the reasons for choosing a particular president and the props.

Before the presentations, Linda went over altering a pattern by showing us a sweater she plans to make and how she plans to make changes to it. If you plan to change the yarn weight, go up or down only 1 size. For example, not sock to chunky, but worsted to sport is okay. It is very important to gauge.

Next Week is free knit night. Linda will be on an Alaskan cruise, but we have permission to meet at ARD for a night of knitting. Linda L says we will party, so Linda P will be checking the blog for photos.

Sip and Knit, June 7, 6 to 8:30 p.m.
Linda drew a map on the white board of the Power Mansion Inn location. You come to their parking lot first, and then you must walk down the hill to the entrance. It is the first parking lot on the right on Harrison from Elm.

Fall Class
Linda hopes to see all of us in the Fall. She found the coolest book with wild and fun patterns from Sweden to share with us.

State Fair
No news yet, but June 1 is the pick up date if our presidents don't make it into the fair. We should hear from the judges in a week.  As of Sunday, May 27, we heard that we placed 1st at the State Fair! Congratulations, everyone!

Teri's Summer Knit In, July 21 (Saturday)
A sign up sheet is available for Teri's summer knit together. Add your email address to the sign up sheet in case she has any changes or additions to make during the summer. We will be bringing our knitting and sack lunches. She will provide drinks, desserts, and snacks. We will arrange carpools before that time.

Summer Idea
Debi shared with us that she attended the Yarn Tasting Cafe in SF that was great. It was on the third floor with a good view. The shop specializes in custom yarn for an inexpensive price. She was thinking that we should spend a weekend in SF, and she will look into it.

Sue made this cute hat. The back of the hat has a very beautiful design.

Here is another hat that Sue made. It is lovely.

Karen made a pair of socks in a week.

Hope to see you at the next two meetings.  But if not, Happy Summer Knitting! 
　

Hearth & Home III Wk 7

It was the last night to sign up for Sip n Knit that will be held at the Powers Mansion Inn. This fun evening of eating and knitting will be held on Thursday, June 7, from 6 to 8:30 p.m.

Linda spent quite some time going over several afghan patterns and showed us the pictures in color. For the plarn afghan, use size 11 needles instead of 17 and cut the bags into 1-1/4 inch strips instead of 3/4 inch strips. The other patterns were the Tobin squares, the mosaic knitting afghan, Pick a Letter afghan, Stars and Hearts shadow knitting afghan, and the Tea Time pot cozy.

Last Class
Next week is our last class, but we decided to knit together in class on May 31 too since ARD will allow us to do so. Linda will be on an Alaskan cruise with her family that week.

Please Don't Forget to Register
A few students were not able to register for this current class online. If you have not registered through ARD, please do so as soon as possible. Linda needs to submit her enrollment fee in order to be paid for this spring semester.

Presidents
Rosemary will be taking the presidents to Cal Expo this Friday to enter them into the State Fair. She had to detach the presidents from their stands so the judges can pick them up if necessary. Linda asked the class if she should ask the judges for their criteria on what we are being judged on later in the summer. Everyone thought that would be a good idea.

Next Week
Since most of us do not know the reason for the props chosen for the presidents, we will be giving a brief explanation on why we knitted or used certain props for our president.

Fall Class
The Fall class will start on September 13 and end the first Thursday in December. Linda would like to focus on textures and showed us a picture of the Gansey sweater sampler that we will be making. Several ladies would like to buy the book for this class. It is called, "Knitting Ganseys" by Beth Brown Reinsel. A Gansey is a British wool fisherman's sweater.

We will also be knitting the Amna sweater #11685D below from the new Knit Picks catalog. If you buy this pattern, you can get a 15% discount on the yarn. This pattern says it is for $2.99, but it will ring up at $7.99, so you must contact Knit Picks to let them know what the price is in the catalog and they will honor the cheaper price.

Another project will be textured yarn ball holders.

Yarn Bomb Chairs
Linda explained what the fabric was for on the yarn bomb chairs. It is used as a guide to place your pieces on for size and shape. The knitted pieces are pinned together but not to the fabric, then when it covers the whole fabric, it is sewn together but not to the fabric. This may sound confusing on paper.

Summer Knitting
Teri has once again invited us to her nice cabin in Kingvale for a day of fun and knitting. This event will be held on Saturday, July 21. A sign up sheet will be passed around next week or at Sip n Knit. We will carpool together and bring our own sack lunch. We had so much fun playing games and being together several years ago at her place.

Teri spun her yarn and knitted it into this scarf with charms on the ends.

Sandy's oval rug. It is a good size.

Here are Candi and Linda's cable grocery bag holders.

Diane's friend is selling these pretty yarn bowls for $30 each. 

Vickie received this cute needle gauge for Mother's Day.

Boy, are we getting computer savvy!  Here Rosemary and Sue look online for a book during class. Linda has one too, as well as many others who use their smart phones.

Happy knitting!

Hearth & Home III Wk 6

Spinning Night! Although we missed Linda, we enjoyed listening to our guest speaker, Lizette Hopkins. She gave us a lot of good information and kept us laughing while teaching us how to spin. Besides spinning, her real profession (until recently) is professor of ballroom dancing at Folsom Lake College. She also sings, was anchorwoman on Channel 40 some years ago, and belongs to 7 spinning guilds.
　

Louise got our attention with a question that none of us got right. How did the knitter knit a suit of armor? The answers the class came up with were pretty good, but the answer is with steel wool.

Claudia brought roving for the class. Lizette said it was a good deal and really nice wool. Did you know that alpaca yarn is called the poor woman's cashmere? 

Lizette demonstrated how to card,

how to use this other carding machine,

how to attenuate and wrap the fiber around the arm,

how to use the spindle,

and how to use a spinning wheel. She owns 20 spinning wheels.

 Here are our attempts at using a spindle that Lizette's husband made for us the night before. We were able to purchase it for $4 each.

Claudia tries using a spinning wheel for the first time. She's a natural.

Twelve ladies had a nice dinner at Max's with Lizette.

Fingerpuppets
Diane took some of the fingerpuppets to the Loomis library. They are displayed in the very back of the library. If you do not see your fingerpuppets, Linda has them.

Presidents
Rosemary noticed that some of the presidents are not fastened to their stands and can easily come off when packing. So, she asked us if she could whip stitch the presidents on to the stands. 

Show 'n Tell

Judith's gorgeous neck warmer

Cynthia's beautiful shawl that she shared with us last week.

Irene's ATC (Art Trading Card). In class, she said it was called "After the Presidents" (hee, hee), but it is really titled "Relaxing in the Sun."

Knit and enjoy!
　

Hearth & Home III Wk 5

The presidents were due on Thursday night. The sight of all the presidents lined up together was awesome. Everyone did an outstanding job.  Linda was really proud of us.

Leslie and her son made the nice sign. More photos at the end.

Linda demonstrated how to make a cable for the plastic bag keeper. The size 6 needles are for the ribbing only, then we switch to the size 8 needles for the rest.

Good Day Sacramento, Channel 31
The ladies met at the new location of Auburn Needleworks to be filmed for the Good Day Sacramento show at 8:15 on Friday morning. They brought their presidents with them. The show was aired around 9:30 am. Linda L. emailed all of us to say, "I went to Good Day Sacramento and searched their videos for presidents and our video from this morning came up and I clicked on the Facebook icon below the video and was able to post it to my Facebook page and then send it to my newsfeed. What fun we had this morning!"

Click on photo for a slide show. Thank you to Karen M. for sending me these two photos. For more photos, click on Presidential Photos under "Pages" on the left side of the blog.

Here is a message that Linda received from Good Day Sacramento:

"LINDA! WOW! I am so sorry about everything that happened today but the taped piece looked PHENOMENAL! Heather had a wonderful time too. I can't thank you enough for gathering all your students and the little presidents for the 9am hour. It is difficult to get a live signal out of Auburn so I am glad we were able to get the video back in time to run it today! I also know you are bringing all the presidents down to the State Fair and we would LOVE to get another shot with you and your team when they are either set up at the fair (we are definitely going live opening day and throughout the fair) OR you are welcome to bring them here instudio! That would be a ton of fun!

The segment is being posted on our website now and once it's loaded, I will send to you!
Thanks again and please keep in touch come State Fair time!
Aly (Alyson Schulz), Senior Coordinating Producer, Good Day Sacramento"

Another Good News
Linda received a letter from Vogue Knitting to invite her to bring the presidents to a convention in Chicago on October 25-28. Apparently, a reader sent the Auburn Journal's April 29 article about Linda and the Presidents to Vogue Knitting, and they were impressed. Teri and Debi volunteered to go to Chicago in the Fall to showcase the presidents.

Next Week, May 10: Spin, Spin, Spin
Linda will be absent, but she has arranged a guest speaker from El Dorado Hills who will be bringing each of us a spindle to practice with. We need to bring 2 oz. of roving. Don't get dyed roving. You can purchase roving at Rumplestilskin's in downtown Sacramento, and Claudia suggested the Farmer's Market. Babetta's sells roving too; prices range from $3.00 to $30.00. She recommended that I buy the one for $4.50 for our purposes. Our guest speaker will also bring a spinning wheel for us to try. Linda suggested that we take up a collection for our guest in class.

Anyone who wants to have dinner with our guest speaker before class, please contact Debi if you have not done so already. We will no longer be meeting at the Frontside Cafe since they are not open for dinner. Debi suggests meeting at Max's next to Holiday Inn and In-N-Out at 4:30 p.m.
 
May 17 Class
Linda will cover afghans. She gave us three afghan handouts that she felt we would like.

Our class is officially over on May 24; however, Linda can arrange a class for us on May 31 even though she will not be here.

Reservations and fee for Sip n Knit are due on May 17.

Fingerpuppets will be transferred to the Loomis Library from Foresthill that week too.

Tip from Karen W
Did you know that skewers are a good substitute for size 6 needles? Karen W. could not find her needles. So, Penny suggested that she look around the house for something to use. She found skewers!

Sandy's oval rug

Pat's Noro scarf

The Presidents of the United States and a Presidential Candidate

Happy knitting!