July 12, 2013

MIT Stata Center room 155, 7 pm
32 Vassar St, Cambridge, MA 02139

Margaret Atkinson and Maureen Clark bring the story and yarns of the Green Mountain Spinnery Cooperative to our July meeting.

A worker owned business in Putney Vermont, the Spinnery started more than 30 years ago. They make high quality natural fiber yarns sold under their own label and are a custom spinner for fiber farmers nationwide. They also specialize in Certified organic and petroleum- free fiber processing.

Join us for a slide show about life creating yarns and patterns at the Spinnery, as well as a trunk show.  They plan to bring yarns to fondle as well as for sale, so come prepared.

If you’ve made things with Green Mountain Spinnery yarns or patterns, it would be fun to bring them for show and tell.

This is the last meeting of the 2012-2013 programming year.  As always, guests are welcome for $5, and if you decide to join the Guild, the $5 goes toward a 2013-2014 membership if purchased on July 12.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Hey all,

We are happy to share some more videos from Ignite Craft Boston 3. It was a great evening full of fun talks and here are three more for you to check out below. If you would like to see the whole playlist of videos released to this point please visit the playlist page.

The following videos show a pretty amazing range in craft, from dyeing great huge hanks of yarns, to builsing a canvas using yarn, to really expensive amaxing uses of textiles within the bio-medical community. Hope you enjoy this, and if you do please share it with your friends.

Dyeing Self-Patterning Yarn or Attack of the Giant Skein

The Fine Craft of Knitted Canvasses

Biomedical textiles

Please join us at 7pm on Friday, May 10th, at the Stata Center at MIT as we welcome CraftLit podcaster and author of the What Would Madame DeFarge Knit series of books, Heather Ordover.  She’ll be giving us a TED-styled talk, and will be on hand afterward to sell and sign her books, the newest of which has just come into print this month!

She’ll also be sticking around for Saturday and teaching her critically acclaimed workshop on sock heels! Sock heels? Why? Because not every sock fits every foot.

A knitter needs to be able to substitute a well-fitting heel for a saggy one no matter the pattern, no matter the gauge.

Each heel has its own tricks, its own favorite foot type, and its own easy-math worksheets that lets students substitute their best-fitting heel into any sock they ever knit for the rest of their lives–guaranteeing a perfect fit.

The class process requires creating quick-to-knit socklettes to allow students a chance to test for fit.

This class is offered as a full-day workshop Saturday May 11th from 9 am to 4pm with a lunch break from noon to 1 pm (bring a lunch or walk to nearby options), but if you can’t make it for the full day you can take just the morning half of the workshop for a lower price (download the syllabus here). Classes will be held in MIT’s Building E51 (the same place as Fiber Camp) close to the Kendall Square T stop. Since the workshop is on Saturday, free parking is available in the E51 lot.

Here’s the link to register for the workshop. Common Cod Fiber Guild members get a $10 discount which you should receive in an email blast. If you haven’t received it, please email guild@commoncod.com and we’ll get it to you.

While you’re marking your calendars, remember that Friday, May 10th’s meeting will be in our usual building, in the same room as last time, at 7pm (doors open at 6:30):
MIT Stata Center, Room 124
32 Vassar Street
Cambridge, MA

And, if you’ve been following our Ravelry Forums , you know that an informal Spin In and social session is slated for Sunday, April 7 at 2 pm in the lounge in front of the Tang Auditorium (inside Building E51, at the corner of Wadsworth and Amherst St). Stop by if you’ve got the time.

IgniteCraft Boston 2013 happened in January, and we are excited to show you the videos from the talks!

You can subscribe to the entire playlist so that you are notified when we add more videos. You can also give it a Facebook “like” or a Google plus “+1″ if you want. We are very thankful to Grey’s Fabric and Notions for sponsoring.

Ignite talks are 5 minute talks where the slides automatically advance every 15 seconds. The first video is our own President, Alasdair Post-Quinn, talking about the Guild’s history and why we are called the “Common Cod” Fiber Guild, what Ignite Craft is and what Fiber Camp is.

The second talk of the evening was Abby Glassenberg (blog/Etsy store) talking about her journey designing and sewing soft toys for children. She took to designing and sewing birds, published The Artful Bird: Feathered Friends to Make and Sew, and has now expanded into designing different types of stuffed animals, including ones that can stand up. Look for Abby’s new book, Stuffed Animals: From Concept to Construction, in May.

The third talk of the evening, and the last one of this post, is “Large Scale Collaborative Origami” by Dr. Jeannine Mosely. Dr. Mosely describes how she designs, recruits and educates volunteer teams to fold tens of thousands of business cards to make sculptures weighing over a hundred pounds to design abstract mathematical structures and even a model of a train station.

There are more exciting Ignite Talks to come!

We are looking for volunteers and nominations for the 2013-2014 season’s Board of Directors. If you think the Common Cod Fiber Guild is great, please consider running! For more information, including more detailed descriptions of position responsibilities, see here. The basics:

Board Responsibilities

• Time commitment: About 5 hours per month (including monthly Board meetings and semi-monthly Guild meetings).
• Guild Meetings: It’s great if Board members are free at 5PM for a quick dinner with the speaker, or at least by 6PM to help set up and greet people at the door.
• Term: There is a 1-year commitment for all positions, although we’d love it if you stayed on longer.

Board Positions for 2013-2014

• President (must have served at least 1 year on Board)
• Treasurer
• Secretary
• Membership/Community Coordinator
• Publicity Coordinator
• Program Manager

Nominations, Deadline, and Timeline

• Nominate yourself or a friend by April 23, 2013.
• Email guild@commoncod.com with the Board position and the nominee’s name and email address. Nominees will be given the chance to approve their nomination before going on the ballot.
• Candidates announced: May 10 meeting. Online voting: May-June. New Board announced: July 12 meeting.
• You must be an active member to nominate yourself and/or to vote in the upcoming election. If you haven’t joined or have let your membership lapse, you can join or re-up here.

Hope to hear from you soon!

Just a quick note to let everyone know we are still planning on holding tonight’s meeting. There’s a fair amount of snow out there, so please be careful! That said, we think most people will be able to make it safely, so we hope to see you tonight.

Tatyana Yanishevsky’s knitted plants, flowers, and other elegant creations range from an amazingly realistic lily to mysterious and alien sea creatures. Familiar fiber craft materials (her favorite yarn is mohair) merge with electric lights, resin, steel armatures, and various electronic elements to create striking works by this artist, who taught herself to knit at age 18 using the Internet.

In her “day job,” Yanishevsky has worked as a fisheries observer in Alaska, and currently works as a Quality Engineer at an applied environmental science company. In her talk, she will explore how her career and other aspects of her life influence her art, and it’s easy to see that observations of the natural world play a major role. As spring approaches, come grab a breath of fresh air and inspiration from these organic creations!

Friday, March 8th, 7 pm
The Stata Center, Room 124
32 Vassar Street
Cambridge, MA
Kendall Square T Stop, Red Line
Parking on street or in area lots

Free for Guild members, and guests are always welcome for $5.

Hi, everyone!

Sadly, we’re going to have to postpone today’s event: The MBTA is still not running, and MIT is officially closed so that they can clear parking lots and streets.

We will keep you posted about when we can get together instead, but in the meantime, because we were dying to see what you’re working on and what you’ve recently finished, how about a virtual get-together and show & tell over here in this Ravelry thread?

Also, don’t forget our other informal get-together next weekend: Saturday, February 16, we’re having a field trip/meetup at the Wayland Winter Farmers Market for Farm Fiber Days. The market goes from 10 AM-2 PM. If you’re interested in coordinating and/or carpooling for the market, join us in the Ravelry thread, or email Karen at membership@commoncod.com.

Hi, all! Just a note to say we’re keeping an eye on the weather and will let you know Sunday morning whether we’re still able to hold the Sunday Guild Social at MIT from 4-7PM. Our fingers are crossed (even though that makes the fibercrafting a little more challenging) that everything is clear and the roads and T are operational by 4PM Sunday, but we’ll let you know either way on Sunday morning. Keep an eye on this space, or on Facebook, or on the Rav thread about the event. Hoping to see you Sunday!

Assuming the event occurs, a reminder of the deets: Come fibercraft with us Sunday, February 10, 4-7 PM, Room 095, MIT’s Building E-51 (the Tang Center);  map here and driving directions here.

Advantages of hanging out with other fiber fans:

1. Fiber fans won’t stare at you blankly or snicker when you use terms like “rigid heddle,” “singles,” “bottom-up,” or “thrum.” Well, they might snicker (hi, Guido!), but at least they won’t stare at you blankly.

2. Fiber fans are usually pretty tolerant of your compulsion to fondle their hand-knits while they’re wearing them.

3. Fiber fans won’t look askance at all the fibers, lint, and/or loose threads stuck all over your clothes — or at the stacks and piles of fibercrafting equipment and paraphernalia filling up every corner of your home.

4. Fiber fans might show you something beautiful and amazing they’ve made, or teach you something incredibly cool, or let you show or teach them something beautiful or cool, or happily — and with every appearance of genuine interest — engage in a conversation entirely about fibercrafting.

Yay for fiber fans! In fact, Common Cod loves fiber fans so much that we’re sponsoring two informal events during the month of February for fiber fans to hang out together:

First, we invite members and friends to come fibercraft with us on Sunday, February 10, from 4-7 PM in Room 095 of MIT’s Building E-51 (the Tang Center). Bring your knitting, crochet, spinning, tatting, naalbinding, hand-sewing, or other fibercraft of your choice and hang out with like-minded fiber enthusiasts. If you feel so inclined, bring snacks to share! Please RSVP so we know how many to expect. For those who attended FiberCamp, Room 095 is in the basement, where the Swap Table was. For those who (tragically) missed FiberCamp, there’s a map here. Driving directions can be found here, but note that the building is also very easily accessible from the Kendall Square T stop on the Red Line.

Second, Willa told us on Ravelry about the fantastic-sounding Farm Fiber Days at the Wayland Winter Farmers Market, and we thought it would be great to have a CCFG meetup there on Saturday, February 16. The market goes from 10 AM-2 PM. To quote Willa, “It’s a fabulous market even on regular non-fiber days (and usually a couple of yarn vendors come on regular weeks), but the fiber days are really fantastic. Yarn, spinning fiber, wool bags made of recycled suit jackets…I’ve gotten some super awesome stuff there.” If you’re interested in coordinating and/or carpooling for the market, join us in the Ravelry thread, or email Karen at membership@commoncod.com.

We hope to see you at one or both of these Guild-sponsored events!