General Questions
We are a global non-profit organization that helps knitters all over the world. We do not have a central office. The members of the board of directors, co-chairs and committee members are all certified Master Knitters who help other knitters improve their knitting skills through correspondence courses and online assistance. You can contact us at info@tkga.org, on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and our Ravelry group.
We are a global, volunteer run organization that is completely virtual (many of us have never met in person). We have no physical office. TKGA’s only contact is: info@tkga.org.
Any other phone number or address you find is actually the personal home phone and address of a TKGA volunteer. Out of respect to our volunteers, please do not contact them at their home; please use info@tkga.org.
If you would like to mail a check to us, please email info@tkga.org and we will provide the personal home address of one of our board members. If you really want to talk to someone, please send us an email at info@tkga.org (with your time zone) and a volunteer will call you. However, we do ask that you first search the TKGA website. It will answer most every question. We constantly update it as we get more member feedback.
We haven’t wanted to spend our members’ dues on a phone service when the money can go toward furthering educational and technical pursuits for our members. Understandably, none of our volunteers want to have their personal phone number or address on the website where we could (and do) get calls from every time zone at all hours of the day and night. Yes, if you try really hard you can find a phone number, but it is the personal home number of a volunteer.
Please help us in this matter. Our volunteers give up much personal time, effort, and knitting time to take care of members.
Since we do not have a physical office, we cannot store yarn or patterns. If you’re looking to donate items, please consider donating yarn to a local retirement or nursing home, school or community center. Some other options include:
Selling or buying yarn:
- https://www.ravelry.com/groups/iso-and-destash-of-yarn (Note: this group also provides links to about a dozen other more specialized buying and selling groups, such as for handspun yarns, knitting books, etc.)
- Selling or buying knitting machines and other equipment:
- https://www.ravelry.com/groups/browse/show/used-tools–equipment-classifieds
- https://www.ravelry.com/groups/machine-knitting—sales-and-swaps
- https://www.craigslist.org/about/sites
Buying or selling vintage yarn/patterns:
The internet has made finding stitch patterns easier than ever before. Ravelry has an extensive database of patterns from books, magazines, pamphlets, webzines, and self-published online patterns. To use their database, visit www.Ravelry.com and look up patterns, click on the Advanced Pattern Search and narrow down the results by clicking on the attributes. A great resource is any of the books by Barbara Walker, starting with Treasury of Knitting Patterns:
With knitting, it’s so much easier to have someone look at your work. If you do not have another knitter to consult, you may be able to take your project into your local yarn shop and see if someone can help. If you need assistance with finishing, knitting techniques, etc, consider enrolling in one of our knitting correspondence courses. If you are a member and have a question that can be answered via email, please feel free to email us at info@tkga.org.
To reach knitters for hire, if you’re on Instagram enter #knittersforhire or #sampleknitters to connect with knitters who do contract work. Below are links to Ravelry groups that you might find helpful:
- https://www.ravelry.com/groups/the-testing-pool
- https://www.ravelry.com/discuss/indy-pattern-designers-resources/66755/1-25
- https://www.ravelry.com/groups/pattern-testing-threads
As a benefit of membership, patterns are available exclusively to our members for one year. In addition, members have unlimited access to download any pattern from any issue of Cast On as long as they are members, even past the first year. We do not sell individual patterns. Our status as a nonprofit organization has restrictions on our ability to generate revenue that is not related to our mission. We also contract with designers to have the sole access to the pattern for a year and ability to make the pattern available to members after that. If the pattern is older than one year, you should contact the designer on Ravelry.
The back issues of Cast On were destroyed when the former management company ceased to operate the guild. From time to time, issues are available for sale on eBay or Ravelry.
Patterns and articles from back issues are available to our members in our online archives. While not all the patterns prior to 2016 have been uploaded, and some content was lost with the former TKGA.com website, we are happy to check our personal stash of back issues and upload a pattern for a member.
We do not open our member database to solicitations. We also do not take any paid advertising.
My organization is having an event, meeting or fundraiser. Could you post our event to your members?
If you are a member of an affiliate guild and have at least 2 months advance notice, please email your event to info@TKGA.org with a request to list your event in our monthly newsletter, K2TOG.
Please understand that TKGA provides these links to third party websites for your convenience. We do not monitor this content and make no guarantee as to the accuracy of information, quality of work or reputation of third parties. The content on these sites is not under our control and we are not responsible for information you may receive, items purchased or relationships you may enter into. If you decide to access any of the third party websites linked to our site, their content or application, you do so at your own risk.
Website and Classes
Click here to request a replacement membership card.
If you have a new email address or would like to change the address you receive guild mailings at, contact info@tkga.org.
When you join TKGA as a new member, website access is automatically created for you as soon as we finish processing your membership. You’ll be sent an email with your login credentials — but if you have hotmail or comcast emails, your ISP may send the email to a spam folder or not deliver it. If you haven’t received login credentials within one business day, please contact us at info@tkga.org.
You can change your password in the Change Password section, under Member Resources.
Cast On is published quarterly, in February, May, August, and November. K2TOG is published monthly, around the beginning of each month. If you’re a current member who has not opted out of email, we’ll send you an email announcing the publication of each.
It’s an unfortunate reality of the spam filters that not all of our members receive the emails we send them. If a month goes by and you don’t receive a newsletter announcement, feel free to contact us at info@tkga.org.
The costs for the Master Hand Knitting program are
Level 1 – $105
Level 2 – $125
Level 3 – $150
Members outside the United States also pay an additional charge of $60 for Level 1 ($75 for Levels 2 and 3) to cover higher shipping costs.
Additional information about the Master Hand Knitting program is available here and also on the Master Hand Knitting FAQ page at this link.
For Mini Courses, all materials will be automatically emailed to you upon purchase. For Correspondence Courses, the General Information Document and the first lesson will be automatically emailed to you upon purchase. Subsequent lessons will be emailed to you by the instructor as you progress through the course. MHK Level 1 is automatically emailed to you upon purchase. Upper Levels need verification before purchase but are emailed upon purchase.
*upon purchase – once your transaction has been processed and, in some cases, manually connected to your member record.