Author: Lyn Leventhall

This was the club meeting where donations for the Marsden Charity table were gathered in. There was a large collection of beautifully knitted items.

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Chairman’s message – the club competition will be for the January meeting.

The meeting was taken by Kathy who introduced us to a new yarn made from Nettles, not any nettles but giant ones grown in Nepal. These were gathered and processed by the local people who knitted intricate and delicate lace patterns into shawls and other garments.

Lucy showed us a chunky jumper dress she had made recently and Tricia showed off a warm jumper that she had knitted.

Also at this month’s meeting we had a visitor who has recently moved to the area and is getting her knitting machine out again. Like many of us, the machine has taken a back seat (or rather under bed) role  until recently.

As we did not have a speaker this month, the meeting was largely a mix of chatting, some advice for a machine in need of some TLC and the usual coffee and cakes.

This was an interesting meeting as we had a request from a fashion student for knitters to help her create knitwear for her show. Several experienced knitters offered help.
This was followed by the usual notices.
Our speaker this month was Fiona Whitehead from Kingston University, faculty of Art Design and Architecture where she works with students of fashion, particularly knitwear.

Her department has a new industrial knitting machine from Shima Electronics in Japan and Fiona spent two months in Japan learning to use this machine. She described her trip and showed us slides of the factory and workshops as well as samples of the knitted fabric that the machine can create. Unlike our domestic machines which can us a maximum of 2 colours in a row, the Shima machine can use up to 28 colours and is very complex to operate.
Fiona also described how her students start using domestic knitting machines before moving on if they choose to design for the industrial machines.
She showed us videos of the knitwear created by the students for the final shows and Graduate Fashion week, then told us about the destinations of some of the students who now work for companies with household names designing knitwear. Finally, some actual samples were shown and available for club members to examine.
Club members enjoyed this interesting talk and there were many questions afterwards showing the high level of interest in this subject. We would like to thank Fiona for giving us a valuable insight into the other side of our craft.

This was a club meeting and the discussion was on what types of items were suitable for the Xmas Charity sale for the Royal Marsden Hospital.

Clare showed us a lovely red jacket she had made.
Brenda gave out several notices including the dates for shows -at Sandown Park 16-18th September and Alexandra palace on 6-9th October. Then the arrangements for the club Workshop on the 15th October were noted – 9:30-4 at the hall, bring your own machine and yarn and get creative! Don’t forget your lunch,tea and coffee provided.
This was followed by Brenda and various members suggesting ideas for the annual Charity table for the Royal Marsden hospital. There was a lovely shawl made by Brenda and hand knitted scarves, cushion covers.

Several members produced work they had been creating for charity so give the rest of us ideas. Now it is time to get knitting as the November meeting will be the one where we bring in those things we have been making.

This month our meeting was in a different location – the Old Barn Hall in Bookham,  it was quite cosy as the venue was smaller than our normal hall. However it was as lively as ever, one member bought a large range of pattern books and booklets as she had decided to downsize her machine  knitting stock.  There was much interest as members were able to take the ones they wanted for a small donation.

After the usual notices given by committee members, Brenda introduced our speaker of the night – Susan Holtam who makes and sells garments she has designed and dyed.  There was a colourful display of dyed yarn hanging up along with a rail containing some of the garments she made. There were eagerly examined and admired by club members during the coffee break.

Susan has been knitting since the early 1980’s and is completely self-taught, she talked about being a designer and carrying a notebook and sketchbook when she went out to make notes and drawings of things that interested her.

She showed us some swatches from her current projects which she had dyed herself, describing the different effects the same dye has on different yarns, depending on the type of yarn whether is is silk, cotton etc. and how it is created. Some garments she dyes after knitting while others are painted with dye to create special effects.

Many of her designs used partial knitting – a favourite technique of hers. Along with mixing different weights of yarn to make stunning scarves and jackets.