2020 Annual Report

Every February, we give a recap of how the Guild did over the last year and publish our annual report. We briefly went through some highlights of the crazy year that was 2020 and some of our goals for 2021 at the meeting. We also recently found out the Textile Center will not be renting meeting space for the rest of the year, which means our meetings will remain virtual. You can read the whole annual report here. 

Volunteers Needed!

The Guild is completely run by volunteers and we can use a few good people to help out!

• Programming Director - Unfortunately, our fabulous Programming Director, Jess Dahlberg, needs to step down from her role. We are looking for someone to fill this position on the board. This person would be responsibly for sourcing and hiring teachers and speakers for meetings, planning non-speaker meetings such as the picnic and State Fair Show & Tell, and working with local dyers and yarn stores for trunk shows and vending at meetings. They attend monthly board meetings and work with a budget. We currently have programming booked through May and the board is working on more of the year already. Do not worry if you are not Zoom savvy, we have members of the board who handle this part of our meetings. This position is for a three-year term with the option to hold a second term. Contact Kathy for more information.
• Meeting Recording Editor - We record our meetings on Zoom for members to access. We could use help with editing the videos to post. Please contact Kate at for more information. 
• Writers for Our Blog - Have an idea for a post on our blog? We are looking for tips & tricks, stories about your knitting process or a particular project, tales of knitting travel, or anything that would be of interest to knitters. Contact Kate or Melissa if you are interested.

Yarnover Chair

We send out a big thank you to Shelley Hermanson who has decided to step down as chair of the Yarnover Committee after 20 years! Shelley is a huge part of why Yarnover is such the great event it is today. 

We'd also like to thank Sue Traczyk and Barb Lind who have been members of the committee for many years and are also stepping down.

That means we need a new chair for the Yarnover Committee. This person will be in charge of running the Yarnover committee meetings, hiring and liaising with teachers and speaker, controlling the Yarnover budget in conjunction with the Guild treasurer, securing a venue (2022 is already under contract), and keeping the board and Guild up-to-date on Yarnover. There is currently a committee in place with volunteers who have run the marketplace, registration, and door prizes for a few years. There are also board members who will be volunteering on the committee as well. If you are interested please email Kathy.

Service Knitting Update

Keep on knitting! Hats, mittens, fingerless mitts, scarves, lap blankets

How to get your items to the Service Committee:

1. Drive through drop-off: Sunday, April 25, 12-3pm, Textile Center

2. Potomac Bead Company, Alexandria, MN is accepting donations. - Read more about them here.

We’re looking for volunteers or shops to host drop-off events in greater Minnesota! The Guild will reimburse for shipping the items to the Service Committee. If interested, contact Dawn.

Please do not mail donations to the Textile Center at this time. Contact Dawn if you have a donation you cannot bring to a drop-off event.

Library Update

New Books 

• Embroidery On Knitting
• Seasonal Slow Knitting
• Kofteboken

Recent Magazine Renewals

• Laine
• Nomadic Knits
• Pompom Quarterly

Questions? Requests? Contact Anne

You can browse the library online and checkout books! Visit the Textile Center website for more information.

Designer Spotlight

Our designer of the month is Sarah Schira of Imagined Landscapes. We all love her gnomes! She'll be our April speaker and we'd love to surprise her with knit gnomes in everyone's Zoom video. Use the code "MeetTheGnomes" on Ravelry or Payhip to get 20% off her gnome patterns through February. Browse all the gnomes on her website.  

We'll be having a casual gnome KAL in our Ravelry group. 

These lucky Guild members have won free patterns from Sarah!

Kirsten Wedes

Marilyn Thompson

Karen Lehman was the lucky winner of a gnome kit during the trunk show from MUSE2320

Upcoming Meetings

March 16 – Kim McBrien Evans – Size Inclusivity     

                 6:30 Trunk Show  - Indigo Dragonfly (Kim’s yarn line)

April 20 – Sarah Schira – A Conversation with the Maker

                6:30 Trunk Show – Knitcircus

May 18 – Jillian Moreno – Yarn Detective

              6:30 Trunk Show - TBA

Announcements from Members

The Textile Center Fiber Art for All event starts on Monday the 21st. There is a silent auction with many knitting related prizes. Kel Moore from Brooklyn Tweed will be the guest for a free online talk on Thursday, February 25th at 6:00pm. You do need to register. All the information on this and other speakers and classes is on the Textile Center website. 

Best of 2020

We ended the meeting with a slideshow of the projects are members are most proud of from 2020. The work was amazing! Nikky is working on putting together a blog post with all the projects and links to the patterns, so stay tuned.