In like a Lion, out like a Lamb! That's March in California in a nutshell.

The Next Meeting
The upcoming meeting on March 29th is VIOLET! Bring your skeins, roving, fleeces done up in Passionate Purple and Vitriolic Violet to share. This year's project has been very exciting, with seeing what everyone else does with the color, and I expect that this months purple passions will be the same.

Another good reason to come to this month's meeting is for the goodie bag! April's meeting is all about Glitz and do we have some Glitz for you. Everybody is getting a goodie bag, but you won't know what's in it until the meeting.

Regional News
Lambtown schedule is partially up. The Classes and Lectures for Saturday are up, but the workshops don't appear to be yet.

Area 3 News Letter highlights from Kate
The next CNCH 2007 Conference Committe meets Sat, March 25, 10 AM, at Susie Hodges' house, 1272 Queens Rd, Berkeley, CA. Let Emily Brown (510/843-6381) or Penny Peters (510/524-4776) know if you need to be picked up at BART. We will discuss ways to promote our Conference at CNCH 2006 in Modesto along with more discussion on our Conference time schedule, postcards, tags, goody bags, lanyards and the art card auction. Bring along a first draft of anything you have for the CNCH 2006 goody bags. Remember, ALL guild members are welcome at this meeting.
The new Richmond Art Center Event Catelog includes the following class events among others:

• Spiral Scarf Magic, Sat, Apr. 8 (10-12:30) with Susie Hodges. Knit a fashionable spiral, double helix or bias scarf with fuzzy, knitting worsted, size 9 or 10 needles 12 stitches and only basic knitting skills like casting on and garter st. Members: $20. Nonmembers: $25. Call 510/620-6936 to register.
• Fabulous Needle Felting, Sat, Apr.22 (10-1) with Carole Beadle. Learn the basics of the new dry felting methods in a workshop featuring 2- and 3-D methods with a well-known Bay Area artist. Members $20. Nonmembers: $25. Call
  510/620-6936 to register.

The N. CA Bead Society Bead Bazaar is Sat, April 1 (10-6) at the Oakland Convention Center (10th & Broadway, near BART). This great show cost only $4. Information at www.norcalbeadsociety.org

In Memoriam. Long time Bay Area textile teacher, Susan Spaulding, passed away at the end of February. She taught weaving, spinning, dyeing and off-loom techniques for 30 years at the Richmond Art Center and was a founding member of the Berkeley Tapestry Works, later known as Fiber Works. She worked for many years at Straw Into Gold and was the owner of Osage Custom Dyeing & Handspun. She will be missed by her friends in the Bay Area textile community.

New Frontiers in CyberSpace
I have been seeing lots of neat things in Cyberspace that I want to share with you all. Here are links to a treasure trove of tantalizing tidbits for your tasting pleasures!

PodCasts
There is something new in the fiber world. They are called podcasts. Think of a periodic radio show that you download to your iPod or MP3 player. The show talks about new stuff in the fiber world, offers some independent music for sampling, all while you knit or spin. What could be better? Of course, the only thing to make it better is that you don't actually have to have one of these players, you can listen on the computer, burn them to CD, whatever your litttle heart desires. Here are a few podcasts that our members may find interesting:

KnitCast
Knitting News Cast
Cast On
Crochet Cast
Weave Cast
Pointy Sticks
SecretKnitting
Time2Knit
Pixie Purls
FiberCast
Musing of a Peaceful Knitter
KnitterGail
Quilting Stash

Isn't that amazing?!

WebLogs aka Blogs
Many of you are aware of blogs, because that is how this newsletter is done, but did you have any idea how many are out there? Hundred, Thousands? Try maybe millions! Here are some some notable blogs that you may want to spend some time reading. Now you will notice that these are primarily knitting blogs, but if someone can send me links to weaving or spinning blogs let me know and I will add them in.

PanOpticon
The Yarn Harlot
Grumperina


Of course, there is our own newsletter cum webblog, but here are some more blogs from our very own:
CeallachKnits
LeftCoastKnitter

Getting a Blog
For those of you wanting to set up your own blog, here are some sites that will help you do that:

www.blogger.com
www.typepad.com
www.livejournal.com

Setting up a blog is not that difficult, just set up a userid and follow along at each site to set your blog up.

And More....
There is an awful lot of information about knitting, spinning and weaving out there on the Internet, some of it helpful:

Annie Modesitt
I Can Spin


There are also alot of free patterns available for knitters online. Check out these free pattern sites:
Knitting Pattern Central
Free Patterns
Knitting.about.com

Book and Yarn Reviews:
Knitter's Review books
Knitter's Review yarns

I mentioned some eMagazines in the last issue, but here are some more for you to look at:
The AntiCraft
Crochet Me
Knitting beyond the Hebrides
Twists and Turns
Knitting Fog
Fiber News

And then there is all the other stuff that defies catagorization:
You Knit What? Warning: the contents of this site may offend your sense of beauty.
Monster Crochet

The Alongs
There are kind of opportunities for joining on the web, including knit-alongs, garden alongs, sacrifices, swaps etc:
Dyers' Garden Along
Lenten Sockrafice
Interweave One-Skein Along

Have fun with this stuff!