November meeting

The November meeting was a hands-on meeting looking at different ways of joining two pieces of knitting. The evening started by welcoming two new visitors to the club followed by news updates and the show-and-tell.

Reminder that the knit-in is on Saturday 14th November. Numbers are needed to ensure that there will be enough tea, milk and biscuits. Please bring along a packed lunch if you are staying for the whole day. If you would like to join in, then please let Liz know.

There have been a few changes with the local and national knitting and crafting shows. Trident Exhibitions Ltd has ceased trading. Trident ran The Creative Craft Show at various places including Sandown Park. ICHF Events has been taken over by another company, but they say that it won't affect their stitching, sewing and hobby crafts events.

The next local knitting show will be Unravel at Farnham Maltings on the 19-21 February, 2016.

We were reminded about the knitting challenge for this year, which is to knit a cardigan using the provided pattern. You can use any yarn or pattern you like, and please be creative and add your own borders, edging, pockets and embellishments. A PDF copy of the pattern was emailed out to all the club members. Some printed copies are also available.

This month's show and tell again demonstrated the variety of skills and interests within the club. Sally brought along a pair of hand-knitted baby bootees from a Victorian knitting pattern.

Tannis hand-knit a 1949 cardigan pattern, that has taken over 2 years to complete. Finished with contrasting red buttons. Note the subtle shaping details.

Carol has hand-knit a beautiful 'Ghost Orchid' shawl from the book 'New Vintage Lace: Knits Inspired By The Past' by Andrea Jurgrau (link to pattern details on Ravelry). The shawl is made from a cashmere, silk and merino mix yarn.

Liz machine knit a red shawl from a pattern shared on a Facebook machine knitting group.

and a red child's top that will be featured in the next Guild of Machine Knitters newsletter.

Next month is our Christmas meeting. Please bring along any donations, such as knitted items that you don't have a home for, to go to The Royal Marsden. We will also be knitting Christmas decorations, so bring along a small amount of yarn in Christmas colours, and some knitting needles or a crochet hook.

Reminder for February to get hold of some plastic eggs (such as the ones from inside a Kinder Egg), and scraps of wool, to use to create felted balls.

The hand-on session was joining two pieces of knitting. Liz has written a new talk on the subject, and had created 16 samples of different ways of joining knitting, from a simple mattress stitch, through to more complicated on-machine eyelet joins. The sample were passed around, and a knitting machine was set up for people to have a go.

Here is a photo of the 16 samples:

and here is Phyllis learning the eyelet join on the knitting machine.

The next meeting is on Tuesday  1st December.