Meeting Notes and notices – Page 17 – Bookham Machine Knitting Club

July 2012 Meeting

16, July 201217, July 2012 Lyn Leventhall

This month we had a presentation about the knitting archives and collections at Winchester School of Art which is part of Southampton University. The speaker, Linda Newington, is the librarian who has charge of the various collections and an extensive knitting patterns collection.
She told us about the collections of designers Jane Waller, Richard Rutt and Montse Stanley which contain both artifacts collected by them as well as printed material and photographs. Linda showed us slides of various artefacts from the collection and explained the items and how the collections were acquired. She also showed images of the work of current and past students at the Art School who had specialised in knitted textiles and how they used the archives as a resource.

The library puts on a conference called In the Loop which in 2012 will be in Winchester:

IN THE LOOP 3 – THE VOICES OF KNITTING
5-7 September 2012 at the Winchester Discovery Centre

There was much interest in the collections and there was an extended and wide=ranging discussion after the coffee break, then we thanked Linda for her most interesting presentation. A visit to see the collection was arranged for next year.

At the end of the meeting there was a show and tell session with some lovely items displayed by members:

Pink jumper with details on neckline and welts This was machine knitted by Barbara	Neck details of pink jumper
Lilac Babies Jacket – lacey pattern	Lilac babies jacket in shell pattern These two pretty jackets were handmade by Barbara.
Gillian’s striped waistcoat	A smashing waistcoat knitted by Gillian in acrylic black mohair using various oddments for the stripes.
Barbara’s hand knitted Pram Blanket	This beautiful hand knitted pram blanket is from a handwritten pattern that Barbara was given by a lady who knitted it from memory – she then wrote this down when Barbara asked her if she had a pattern.

Margaret wins 2012 Guild Prizes

13, July 201213, July 2012 Lyn Leventhall

The club would like to congratulate Margaret Grinter for her excellent creation which won two prizes this year in the competitions at the Guild of Machine Knitters AGM (see video here) which took place on Saturday 16th June in Cambridge.

The categories were the Creativity Cup and the Guild of Machine Knitters Award for Garment of your own Design:

June 2012 Meeting

3, July 20123, July 2012 Lyn Leventhall

This month, Beryl Jarvis came to talk to us, she is very well known amongst the machine knitting community as an inspirational teacher, writer and speaker. Read More

May 2012 Meeting

16, May 201216, May 2012 Lyn Leventhall

This month we were treated to a really interesting and useful session by April on Cut and Sew techniques. Many of us have not used this technique so April gave us a demonstration of both sewing up a garment on the sewing machine and creating a cut and sew neckline. Later she showed us how to use a garter bar to turn the work to give a neat finish.

Set up with knitting and sewing machines	For cut and sew both machines are needed – a simple sewing machine that does straight stitch and zig-zag is adequate.
Raglan jumper with machined seams	This garment was made on the knitting machine in the normal way, then sewn up on the sewing machine. It gives a neat finish.
Tacking around the neckline	A major use for cut and sew is to make a neckline on the garment front and back that have been knitted as usual but the neckline not shaped on the machine.The garment pieces should be washed / steamed or pressed according to the type of yarn used, before the neckline is created.Making a neckline on a complex pattern it is easier to cut and sew – no holding position and repositioning the punch card needed here! First use a paper or cardboard template to mark the position of the neckline, tack around this with large stitches in a contrasting colour.
Stitching around the neckline	Then machine around twice – once with a large straight stitch, then again on top of that with a narrow zigzag.The neck can then be cut out and a neckband applied using the sewing machine.Before cutting, ensure the stitching has no gaps and cut on the neck side of the stitching to prevent unravelling.
Seams tacked together using binding wire	To tack seams together securely, a binding wire can be used. Bind over the edge like an overcast stitch.
Machining seams together	Sewing next to the binding wire needs to be done carefully to avoid breaking the machine needle on the wire.