Chapter Happenings

Here's a post that I started in mid-December:
"Friday night our event planning committee meet again, we're trying to meet weekly from now until the big weekend."

Yep, that's all that I managed to write. But I guess that's okay, because that's exactly what I was thinking about writing this time, too.

Our CGOA Chapter is going to be very busy for the beginning of the year. Last year we participated in the local Gathering of the Guilds. (see post of March 3, 2009). To promote the Gathering, the sponsoring Guild - The Keystone Lace Guild - has a booth at the PA Farm Show. This week is Farm Show Week - and surprise, we have Farm Show Weather! So, we've been busy filling out the paper work for the Gathering, and planning a Make It and Take It Project. Yesterday morning, two members did a crochet demonstration at the Farm Show and spent the afternoon manning the booth, and crocheting preemie hats to donate to Hershey Medical Center. I arrived late in the afternoon to help man the booth, and started some thread work. I made a pineapple motif, after it's blocked I'll add a long tail to create a bookmark. I hope to make a stack of these for door prizes at the Gathering.
I had an interesting crochet experience with a very young boy who came, alone, to look at what I was doing. I showed him the pineapple and how I did a few stitches, and he seemed interested, so I tried to find a hook and yarn for him to try some crochet. Unfortunately, I didn't have any worsted weight yarn in my bag, because I wasn't doing any demos, all I had was #10 thread. But I got out a ball of thread, and a large hook and showed him how to do some chains. Then let him try it out. I think that he only managed to create one chain, but he had a grin the whole time. I was a little concerned that no parent seemed to be missing this child, but I soon saw that mom was at a booth catty-corner to ours and was watching & smiling. When the boy got up to leave, she mouthed "thank you!" But really, I had as much fun as he did!

The Gathering of the Guilds is an opportunity to share our needlework interests with the community, and a chance to tell people about our Guild. In preparation for the Gathering, we are planning our Make It/ Take It. It's an introduction to crochet with a small project that the students should be able to finish in 1 hour. We will be making up kits for each student. So our January Chapter meeting will be making one of the projects, discussing ways to make it as easy as possible, and then assembling the kits.

Our February meeting will probably be preparing displays for the Gathering, and possibly making some items to sell. We don't know the theme for this year. Last year's was Under the Sea, and Justine crocheted some fabulous shells, and Faith made a beach themed scarf.

The Gathering is February 27th. For more information, check out "the website".

March is National Crochet Month. We usually put together a display for the library where we hold our meetings. With on-going construction and parking lot paving at the library, I can't remember how long it's been since we've met there. I need to find out if they want a display this year. I also need to finalize meeting room plans for the year.

Then April - It's official - The First Annual Crocheters' Weekend will be held April 23rd and 24th at the Church of the Brethren in Mechanicsburg! Friday night we will have a market, book signing, crochet clinic, swap room and display. On Saturday, we will have all those events, plus classes. Our big name teachers are "Margaret Hubert" and "Dee Stanziano". Several of our Chapter members will also be teaching, including my introduction to Tunisian crochet; Justine teaching hairpin lace, and a class aimed at teens; and a young lady who will be teaching a beginner crochet class just for kids. Lunch and childcare will be available, so you can make a full day of crochet!

Our planning meetings have produced a letter for yarn shops to display and handout, a registration form, and a brochure is almost finished. I'm working on getting a website up and running, although that's not at all my skill set. I'll post the website here when things are ready.

In the meantime, I'd like to step away from the computer, the word processing programs, the note taking at meetings, etc. and get my hook back into some yarn!