Preparing for the talks on the City and Guild course
This month we had all the members who had done the City and Guilds Machine Knitting courses in the past talk about their experiences. In addition, several members who had attended other courses showed us their work.
Interestingly many of the speakers had started these course when they had young children. Clearly, they had worked hard in the early mornings and late into the night when their little ones were sleeping. For this alone they deserve our admiration.
April’s City and Guilds projects
April started and told us about the process of designing and how they were taught to draw. She showed us images of where the ideas started and how they progressed through sampling colours and patterns to the garment construction.
Angie followed this – they had attended the same course – showing how her ideas were created from a fish. Similarly creating the patterns and choosing the colours, eventually putting it together to create a lovely bedspread/throw.
Margaret was next and she had gone on to City and Guild’s machine knitting from a broader art and design course, developing her ideas and designs.
Then Ann brought along the work created by our late member Marion, who had also been on the course with Angie and April. Ann also showed us some of the items she had made after having been on courses in the past.
Anu told us of her experience having done this course straight from college. She had spent time developing a business on the back of this.
Finally, Anthea showed us all the samples and colours she had used to create one of her Evolution Jackets from the famous Iris Bishop pattern. We look forward to seeing the finished garment.
There was a very good turnout this month for the talk on Felting for Christmas. We welcomed our speaker Raya Brown of Magic Wool Studio who came all the way from Kidderminster to show us how to make a lovely felted and appliquéd table centre for Christmas.
Raya Brown
This was quite a long process involving laying various threads as an initial structure then adding wool “tops” to a depth of 4-5 mm. As the felting process shrinks the item by at least 30% it has, of course, to be made bigger than the finished item.
The felting process involved lots of soapy water and various surprising tools including an electric orbital sander with bubble wrap replacing the sandpaper. Underneath a waterproof layer of hard plastic, textured drawer lining was used (available from Lakeland Plastics and Amazon). All this helped with the agitation needed to give a good felting.
Various members of the club helped out and tried their hand at the process.
It took time to dry, blotting it with towels and then a variety of pre-felted pieces were added, including holly leaves and a red poinsettia to make a holder for a Christmas candle in a small glass container.
We would like to thank Raya for a wonderful inspiring evening.
At the end of the evening, we also had a collection of the hats members made for charity with the gingery coloured yarn won at the Guild annual meeting. And also, for the show and tell, Barbara brought along an adorable pink baby cardigan with little prams on the pocket.
At the start of the meeting, we were given the sad news of the death of one of the members, Marian. The club sends their condolences to the family. Ann kindly brought along Marian’s City and Guild’s folder to show us. She was clearly talented at drawing as well as being an excellent knitter. April talked about how she had met her many years ago on the C&G course in Croydon. She will be sadly missed by club members.
The programme for this meeting was a demonstration by April of short rowing techniques and she showed us how to create a colourful Christmas stocking with a fairisle band. She used the technique to create a toe and heel although the stocking was fairly quickly made as it was seamed at the back and not created in the round as nobody would be wearing it. A mini version of the stocking was created by April as part of the demonstration.
April demonstrating the Christmas Stocking
Xmas Stocking before sewing showing heel and toe on right)
Mini Xmas Stocking
Anyone who wishes to have a copy of the pattern should contact April by email.
There was a short discussion about whether we would enter the Guild’s Sherbourne Vase competition this year. A group of interested people will meet up and discuss ideas to see if anyone comes up with an inspired idea.
Having won a large pack of ginger coloured Alpaca yarn for our 2017 entry, it was decided that it should be made into warm hats for the homeless this winter and balls of yarn were taken home by some members to create these for next month meeting.
Show and tell:
April demonstrating the Christmas Stocking
Clare brought long a beautiful babies cardigan she had made, incorporating the flat edging technique demonstrated by Margaret in the July meeting on edgings.
Clares Baby’s Cardigan
Margaret brought a fun Father Christmas ornament with an interesting fringe for the coat and beard made by wrapping the yarn around a pencil during the knitting.
Margaret’s Father Christmas Ornament
Next month we are having a speaker on felting – see box on front page of website.
This was also a club night, to start there were quite a few notices:
Next month we will meet at Chessington Garden centre for lunch. Contact Gill if you will definitely come along, get there for around 12:00, we will try to book a table once we know number
In September, Joyce Meader will be our speaker, most of us remember her excellent and entertaining talk earlier in the year about historic patterns and she will continue this theme to more modern times.
The programme is under construction for September onwards – see separate item for a draft list.
Three members went the Guild AGM – April, Gill and Lyn. It was a very very hot day but entertaining with two speakers.
Finally, there was a message from April who had been contacted by the Guild secretary Diana Leverson. Apparently there were too few people to form a proper committee this year and they are hoping people will give some time to be on a county Advisory Panel.
The subject this time was Edgings
Margaret demonstrated a non-roll edging that she had found online a Diana Sullivan YouTube video can be viewed here. She used the club chunky machine and a garter bar to start and finish the sample, then transfer tools to change the stitches on every other row. The garter bar was done by turning the work every other rows. It made an interesting edging to replace ribbing on jackets and baby blankets for example. It can also be done on a tighter tension and turning every 2 rows to replace ribbing for a change or for a button band.
Gaarter Bar in use
Sample of edge with garter bar used for turning
Hand anipulted edge stitchs
Leaving needles empty gives a column of holes
Sample using non roll edge and sample with no special edge for comparison
Frances did one of her lovely edgings/trims this month to show us, it used I-cords to weave and the number of stitches had to be divisible by 4. It gave a cabled look to the garment edge. She also showed us a double e-wrap cast-on which gave a firmer edge useful for heavier garments and those that would get more wear – kids cuffs etc.
There is a Youtube video by Marianne Henio who interestingly posted on her Facebook page about the same technique at the start of August.
I-cord woven detail
Self coloured I-cord detail
I-cord on lower edge and worm edge on top
Show and Tell
Again this month several people brought in their makes, Sheila had a summer weight scarf and Angie had a pretty little girle dress with bead detail.
Sheila’s Scarf
Babies hat
Babies dress beeded detail
Babies dress
Guild AGM
Below are a few snaps from the guild day in June.
Our clever knitters won the Sherbourne Vase – this is a group entry, one of the categories in the Guild’s annual competition series. This year 3 people – April, Gill and Anu entered as the category stated that 3 knitters had to be involved. Congratulations to them all. The Guild keep the entry for one year to take to all the knitting shows, we will have the chance to see it at one or wait a whole year before it is returned.
This month was a club night, Frances and Margaret demonstrated various short row techniques:
Margaret made some easy baby bootees
Frances did neck and shoulder shaping
Gill showed us a beret
Lyn brought along a chunky triangular shawl to show that short row tehniques could be useful for shaping large items.
After the break, we did some brainstorming for next year’s programme.
There was a Show and Tell, Gillian had made a hat and octopuses for preemie babies.
Sheila showed us a jumper in a silk tuck stitch with hand knit lace for the cuffs and edgings. Also a bamboo tape yarn jumper but she had run out of yarn. And finally, she had looked at the various competition entries and made a lovely scarf in the same pattern.
Our new recruit Ingrid had made some Christmas Present headbands and a linen yarn jumper from her own pattern which had raglan sleeves which were made all in one with less sewing up.
Three members went to Westbury in Wiltshire for the AGM or the Guild of Machine Knitters on Saturday 18th June 2017. It was a very hot day, especially for a knitting event.
The first part of the day was a for us to look around at the various exhibitors and competition entries. There was then a talk by Marianne Henio where she showed us some of her knitwear patterns and talked about how she had started knitting.
After that, there was the AGM business and the announcement of the competition winners.
Gill, April and Anu had made a lap blanket for the Guild’s Sherbourne Vase entry which was a group project for clubs to enter. And we won!
Our Winning Entry – the reverse, not shown, was fairisle.
Congratulations to these three talented ladies, it was an excellent effort incorporating many different stitches and techniques.
The afternoon had another talk, this time Jan Truman who knits wire sculptures gave a talk and showed some of her amazing sculptures and talked about her long association with this form of knitting, on her a specially adapted machine.
Here are two photos of the entire blanket:
Front of competition entry showing seasonal colours and many techniques
Fair Isle pattern on reverse of competition entry showing seasonal images
This month was a club evening with no external speaker. It concentrated on looking at how different yarns knitted up.
The committee members had prepared swatches of different yarns and textures to see the variety of fabrics produced. Over the next hour, we studied the way cotton, boucle, mohair, chenille, silk and acrylic performed with stocking stitch, tuck, slip, fair isle, lace and plating. Everyone participated in discussing the variety of uses for each fabric produced. Margaret had experimented how to use her chenille to best effect and keeping it stable. Her swatches were poured over with great interest.
Many articles were then shown by members with their accompanying swatches demonstrating how the finished work had progressed from the original swatch.
After the break, Frances demonstrated the use of the garter bar to the attentive members.
15 jumpers were collected that had been made for charity, following a request from April earlier in the year.
We managed to forget the lottery so it has been postponed until the June 2017 meeting. Remember to bring some cash.
The business of the AGM was over quickly and the election of new officers followed.
Chairman April has resigned and a new chair was elected unopposed – Gill Rise will be our new Chair. Congratulations Gill.
We would like to thank April for all her hard work over the past few years. We look forward to he continuing to give some demonstrations as part of our club nights.
It was then announced that several members will enter the Sherbourne Vase competiton for Guild of Machine Knitters. Winners will be announced at the next Guild AGM in June at Westbury in Wiltshire. Good luck to those involved. This year the Sherbourne vase competition rules had been changed so that only 3 members instead of 5 are required to work on the project. This makes it possible for different groups of people to work on this competition in different years.
Several people were working on the project to knit jumpers for boys in Syria.
After the AGM there were demonstrations of some of the techniques discussed by Anne Baker in her talk last month.
Frances Demonstrating the technique of making “pin tucks”
Margaret and Frances showed us how to achieve some of these techniques.
Tea Cosy Stitch sample
Tuck and Slip technique and pin tucks
Finally after coffee we had to vote for our annual competition winner.
Scarf Competition 10 Entries
All the scarves were completely different and showed the scope of this topic – with different colours, types of yarn and techniques for threading the yarn.
from R to L First prize, Joint second prize
1st prize – Angie
Joint 2nd prize – Sarah
Joint 2nd prize – Angie
Our happy prize winner
Angie is our newest member and scooped both first and third prizes. Well done Angie
The speaker this month was Anne Baker whose knitwear designs will be familiar to many from the Machine Knitting Monthy Magazine as she is part of Karabee designs. Anne has been visiting several clubs in the South East since the Bournemouth show. She and her colleague Eileen brought a large range of garments which she designed and each had its own story.
Pretty cardigans for babiesBlue Body Warmer
We had a wonderful evening listening to her stories and looking at the various garments she brought There was also a sales table with Anne’s patterns and some haberdashery – lovely and reasonably priced. Most of us went home with something we purchase.
Sales TableNeck Warmer
We would like to thank Anne and Eileen for giving us such a wonderful evening.
After Anne’s talk we had some notices and then a show and tell – Gillian had brought two lovely hand-knitted animals a snail and a hedgehog.
