Category: The Club

This was the club AGM which took up the first half of the evening – all the committee members were re-elected and thanked for their contribution to the club.

The second half was a very interesting talk by one of the club members – Margaret Grinter who talked about the felting she had been experimenting with.

She had brought a huge range of samples with her and described the yarn she used as well as the process of felting itself – using lambswool and other yarns with a high lambs wool content, it was possible to create the most interesting fabrics by simply machine washing the knitting in a domestic washing machine at 40 degrees C.

The fabric needs treating to ensure it doesn’t roll tightly at the edges.

One method she described of creating thicker fabrics was to layer several felted pieces then machine stitch a pattern of lines, cut between these and then wash again to felt the fabric further. The effects were absolutely lovely and Margaret had made several cushion covers and a blanket using this technique.

A range of items with tassels and interesting detail were passed around and Margaret showed some lovely soft scarves with tassels which she had made in one piece. She gave us detailed instructions for these and I’m sure a number of club members will be inspired to experiment themselves.

The meeting started with the chairman, Brenda welcoming members of visiting clubs and then telling us about the Bookham Village Day on Saturday June 18th. This year’s theme was “A day at the races” and the club sometimes have a sales’ table and this year a frieze to match the theme could be made. Sarah offered to coordinate this. Offers or work need to be in by Mid May so it can be assembled.

Several members had visited the Unravel show in Farnham and said it was, again, an excellent show with a good range of yarn, projects etc.

Next month was the AGM followed by Margaret’s talk.

We then welcomed back our speaker Erica Thompson who would be talking to us about her wire knitting and about how pressing matters.

She had set up several excellent displays of work and many colourful reels of wire and jewellery findings and booklets for sale that club members had been admiring before the start of the meeting.

She started her talk by her describing how she got started with wire knitting and the type of wire she used. Then she gave us the good news – knitted wire doesn’t unravel if you drop a stitch and as it is not distorted by the machine, you can measure it right on the machine. Excellent for those of us who do not like knitting the usual tension squares. There was some bad news too – the wire is not easy to unravel if you make mistakes as it can kink.

We were shown a huge range of samples made using different techniques and during the evening she demonstrated how to make a simple wire bracelet by knitting an I-cord in wire then plaiting or twisting it into a circle. It looked easy but as I found later it takes practice.

The second part of the talk after coffee and delicious cakes, was called “Pressing matters” which is also the name of Erica’s book. Again she described how it all started and how she came to write a book of the same name. Now,sadly out of print but available second hand from several places. She used a steam generator iron which produces high pressure steam. What she showed us was very impressive, there were very creased pieces of knitting all stretched out of shape and with the help of some wire they were blocked and pressed to perfection. Even a ribbed band was revived. many before and after samples were handed round for everyone to see. We also practised threading the wire through the edge of samples to ensure good straight edges.
Finally, she gave some advice on finishing techniques.
After the talk there was time for questions and many of us descended on the sales table inspired to buy some wire to try out the techniques we had been shown.

It only remained for the chairman to thank Erica and we all went home with our enthusiasm renewed.