September meeting

Late again! Sorry. It's been another busy month. However, better late than never.

We had a lovely meeting with Bookham club members visiting us. They had to sit through our AGM first, but as previous blogs say, that only takes up 10 minutes of the meeting.

The rest of the meeting went by in a flash as well. Liz told the assembled knitters a bit about the history of the club and how we operate. She then handed over to Chris who told us about the various shawls she has knitted, and the differences between them. Some people were amazed that she had handknitted them, and more so when she said how long they took (about 3 weeks mostly). The majority of them were traditional patterns and knitted in fine yarns.

Ann came along with some machine spares and accessories she was selling in aid of Charity. There were also patterns she had written. Ann very kindly gave the money she raised to our Charity of the year - The Friends of the Royal Marsden, Sutton Branch. Thanks to Ann for swelling our donation to the charity and thanks to everyone who bought something.

After a short break for chatting, tea, coffee and delicious cakes made by Sandra, and Shirley and sausage rolls made by Gladys we gathered round the knitting machine and had a couple of techniques demonstrated, one by Liz and the other by Nina. One was a basketweave pattern, the other a decorative hem.

We then all sat down again and various members of our club showed garments and other things they had knitted, some more recently than others. (By this time I'd forgotten all about taking photographs again so I can't put up photos.) The was quite a range of garments, some fine knits, some chunky.

Jean had also brought along part of a pie chart she is knitting for display at the Florence Nightingale Museum in London. It's almost finished and is due to be installed either later this year or early next year. As soon as it is up I'll mention it in a blog so you can go and see it.

And by the time we'd done that the time was up and we drew the evening to a close. Thanks to those that stood up and did a bit and brought along the delicious eats. Evenings like this are always interesting.

We had a lovely thank you e-mail from Brenda next day.

Dear Liz,
On behalf of the seven members of our club who were so royally entertained last night by your club, I would like to thank you all for a most enjoyable and instructive evening.
We were enthralled by Chris's shawls and her expertise in designing and knitting them.
Both your demos were new to us, and we will be showing our group in due course as we feel we will be able to make good use of them.
To be able to see the pie chart under construction and all the garments made by you and your members only serves to amaze us at the endless possibilities of machine knitting .
Thank you also for the delicious refreshments.

Regards

Brenda