Category: Meetings

This month, we had an inspiring talk from our chairman April,  who took us through the process of creating a fairisle pattern containing stars. She described the process of creating the designs and where her inspiration came from.

It is hoped that this would help us to come up with some interesting items for next month’s competition which has  two categories 1) An item with stars and 2) cushion covers.

The items April had made one cover to combined these two and two others that she were equally unusual.

After refreshments, we had a Speed Chat session where everyone was encouraged to chat to a member of the committee about the running of the club.  It went really well and quite a few ideas were generated about the direction the club should take next. Members were asked about their favourite meetings and the type of meetings they prefer amongst other things.

Smoothie hats

This month Margaret brought in patterns and samples so we could make little hats for Innocent Smoothies. Each smoothie sold with a hat makes money for the charity  Age UK.

There were a range of techniques – hand and machine knitting plus crochet.  Any unfinished hats could be finished later and sent in directly.

Here is what was achieved. The duck was one Margaret brought in to show us.

Next time we will be looking at “Knitting for the Home”, so various members brought in samples and ideas of items to make.

In addition, we are hoping to have a  fundraising stall at an event in Bookham before Christmas.  Small items for sale will be collected next month and various members brought in items they were making for that.

Here is another collection – this time by Sarah who made these wonderful creations with her mumfter the class:

Finally here are the two I made:

We all thoroughly enjoyed the garden party held in August. Everyone who came also had the opportunity to admire Anthea’s lovely garden, avoiding the bee hives where there were a few angry bees apparently.

A big thank you to Anthea who made her garden available and put in a great deal of effort to make us welcome.  Also to those committee members who  baked delicious cakes and made sandwiches and desserts.

Our chairman gave out some notices – in particular about the next few meetings.

• In July, we will be making small items using cone ends, members should come with any small left over yarn to donate and any finished items will go to charity.
• In August, Margaret has been arranging a trip down to Heathercraft for us, we will have an afternoon out down in Faygate with a talk from Brenda, a chance to get Doug to take a look at any items that might need fixing and a cream tea. Doug will also have his model railway working. It is an opportunity to buy yarn and accessories for your machine too. As well as look through the hundreds of magazines and patterns.  We will arrange a car pool so we can go down in groups.
• In September we will be having a Knitters Question Time. There will be an expert panel who will try to solve your problems.  Please bring questions along to the July meeting if possible.

This month our speaker was Elaine Cater who gave us an interesting talk on using the ribber for more than just ribs on garments. She brought along a range of samples and garments and some of her publications too.

Click on an image to see larger image.

There were two boards with garments and samples from her books – Ribbing Yarns and a book of ribber baby garments, and a rail full of lovely garments.   She talked about a range of interesting techniques and passed around many samples for us to examine.

We thanks Elaine for her talk and the time she spent explaining her work.

Everyone found the talk most interesting and several members mentioned that they would be experimenting with some of the techniques.

April, our new chairman, gave out various notices and introduced our speaker for the evening. There was a request that someone else take charge of the club library. This involves bringing in a couple of boxes of books and patterns each month and keeping a check on who has borrowed what.

Speaker

This month, Anu Baldwin who is one of the members talked about her creative journey in the craft of machine knitting. Anu makes wonderful hats and other items.
She took up machine at college whilst on an Art and Design course and followed that with a City and Guilds course in machine knitting. She showed us some of the work from her courses.

Having started by making jumpers for sale and finding that rather uneconomic she branched out into making smaller more colourful items especially hats. Her success with this during the 1990’s meant her work was mentioned in a Machine Knitting News. She recently attended classes at Morley college where there is a course in more creative machine knitting. She has continued to create innovative items with amazing colours and textures.

Show and tell

April brought in a silver jumper with a pretty crocheted edge.

Yarn Sale

During coffee there was a sale of yarn offered by a former machine knitter who is downsizing.
After that we took the opportunity to look more closely at Anu’s garments and chat to her about them.

The April meeting was in two parts, the club AGM was held at the start of the meeting and that was followed by April Hardman who talked about some of the garments she had made over the past twelve months.

April had brought along a range of lovely garments for both adults and children plus some hats and scarves. Most of the items were her own designs and the work was, as we expect from April, of a very high standard indeed. She showed us some lovely dresses for a small girl, a very pretty pram blanket, various adult sized cardigans and tops as well as a throw and some scarves and hats made on the garter carriage.

Below are April’s own notes on her work and photos of many of the items:

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Dresses

Yarn:

2 dresses in 4 ply acrylic, which washes well if hung up and doesn’t need ironing and is suitable for children. The multi coloured one was a vintage Denys Brunton yarn. 

Stitch Detail

3 x 3 cable with a stitch out of work either side to accentuate the cable, make a cable every 6 rows. There are cables centre front and back and on the sleeves. 

Garment Design

Inspired by a dress in Mon Tricot, it has garter stitch at the lower edge, wrist and neckline, the first 3 were knitted on the garter carriage but the 4th was hand knitted because there were decreasing in the row. The frill at the bottom was knitted with extra cables and was 24 rows. 

Red top 

Yarn:

Black Grigna, unbulked acrylic with a small slub. The red multi yarn is a 76% wool and 25% polyamide. It came in 100g balls, approximately 4ply, and this top size 14 took approx 250g.
Both yarns were very easy to knit and were problem free. After pining out the pieces they were steamed. The edgings were knitted in the black yarn. 

Stitch Detail:

Slip stitch, there is a pattern/punchcard in the 950 instruction book.

Garment Design:

By Elaine Cater. I read her instructions and she indicated that a a colour changer would make the knitting much easier. I made a cut and sew neckline but the edging would not cover the raw edge, so I enclosed this with a 9 row turned hem. I used a charter to knit this design 

 

Scarves 

Yarn:

They were all knitted in pure wool, to be hand washed. 

Stitch Detail:

2 x 2 rib, alternated to make a checkerboard pattern. 

Scarf Design:

Knitted on a garter carriage 

Sofa Throw 

Yarn:

100% Shetland wool, washes well at cool temperatures 

Stitch Detail:

The bands were dog-tooth check knitted on a garter carriage. The Fairisle pattern was from Iris Bishop’s Celtic Designs. 

Throw Design:

There are two panels knitted on the main bed over 160 stitch, 700 rows each panel. Started and finished with a 2 x 1 FNR, half pitch which laid flat. 

Two pink hats 

Yarn:

100% wool 

Stitch Detail:

2 x 2 rib alternated, knitted on a garter carriage. 

Hat design:

They were both made up of four panels which were stitched together with the seams on the outside. One was knitted of straight panels and was shaped by pulling the excess on the crowns to the outside to make a feature. The second was knitted straight up to the crown and this was shaped. There is a crochet flower as an embellishment. 

Fairisle Pram Blanket 

Yarn:

Yeoman’s 4ply Panama. Washes and wears very well and does not need ironing. 

Stitch Detail:

Fairsle, 2-colour knit, using feminine symbols for a baby girl. 

Blanket Design:

The exterior was knitted in two panels with a turned hem to start and finish that has a picot edge. The inside is nylon wadding and the wadding is held in place by fine ribbons which are threaded through and tied in a bow.