Our May meeting is about to happen.

I've been so busy that the May meeting has crept up on me. The first Tuesday of the month is actually the 1st of the month as well.

We have Anne Lavene coming to talk to us and show us some of her interesting and unusual designs. Anne only uses a single bed knitting machine so everyone should be able to knit her designs.

As usual visitors are welcome to attend our meeting.

April Meeting

This month we didn't have a speaker, instead Liz was on hand with a knitting machine. She went over a few techniques which Terry Viner had shown us, just to make sure we understood them. And she demonstrated other things by request, some using holding position as dimensional knitting is very popular at the moment, and can be translated to the machine. A lot of laughter, and some learning!

Members knitting

This is a blanket knitted by Sheila using Magicolour. It is knitted using holding position to create a square. Finished with posh tassels!

More members knitting

Nina's garter carriage jumper.

Nina's jumper with cut float weaving.

Important Member

This is a very important member of our club, Phyllis. She is the lady who makes the tea and coffee, we couldn't function without her!

Our April meeting

Time is moving on very fast again. Our April meeting will soon be here. On Tuesday 3rd April we are having a hands on and problem solving evening, so the knitting machine will be there, and bring your knitting needles as well.

I've been having a go at some of the things Gillian showed us last month, and combining it with machine knitting. It's still in the experimental stage, but showing definite possibilities. So many ideas running round in my head, so little time to do them!

Bring the things you're working on, or have finished recently. We'd love to see them.

If you have a specific problem please post a comment, or drop me an e-mail and we can try to sort it out on the night.

Another goody

Here's a beautiful garter stitch cardigan using a Busy Bees pattern knitted by Sue.

Gillian's samples

Two more of Gillian's samples. The scarf is multi-directional squares knitted in variegated eyelash type yarn, making an interesting pattern.

Knitting Squares

Members knitting multi directional squares, amid much laughter!

March Meeting

This month we were lucky to have a visit from Gillian Lamb, who demonstrated multi-directional knitting. Although the evening was mainly about hand knitting, this technique can be adapted for the machine, or hand knitted pieces can be incorporated with machine knitting. Gillian brought a lot of samples to show, and I hope the photos do them justice. A large part of the evening was spent with us trying to hand knit the joined on squares, some of which weren't quite squares! This method of knitting is good to use up yarn oddments, and yarns of different textures, and the results aren't always predictable, but can be stunning. There are a lot of books on this subject which we looked at, and I'm sure it inspired us to greater things! Maybe next

month someone will have tried this technique!

The photos below show some of Gillian's samples and the club members having fun knitting!

A sample of joined squares incorporated with knitting.









This is a sample of multi-directional knitting using different yarns, the ends are used to embellish with surface crochet.

Tuck stitch blanket knitted on LK150 by Kathy

This month's knitting!

Tuck lace scarf knitted by Sheila.

Frilly scarf knitted by Sheila. Pattern in Guild newsletter.

Roll brim hats knitted on LK150 by Kathy, on a mission to use up
oddments of handknitting yarns.

Hairpin lace scarf knitted by Sheila on standard gauge machine.

Machine Knitting Live

Saturday 3rd March was the day for this exhibition. Liz was there helping on the Guild stand, and doing a great job.All our favourite suppliers were there too. Plenty of patterns, yarns and goodies to tempt all to part with their money! Nice to see new ideas too. Even some hand knitting ideas, particularly liked Fiona Morris and her scarves. This is only held once a year at Bournemouth but with dwindling resources for us machine knitters it is nice to be able to support it, and judging from the number of people there, they feel the same.

Thanks to Ann Smith of Machine Knitting Monthly for organising the exhibition, and her helpers, it must involve a lot of hard work, but we all enjoyed ourselves.

March is here already

Gosh, another month gone by! It's time for me to tell you what's happening at our March meeting.

On Tuesday 6th March Gillian Lamb is coming to show us some multidirectional knitting. This is a technique for knitting a garment that often has only 2 ends to sew in when you've finished and very little making up. It is used mainly by hand knitters, but were working hard to translate it into machine knitting. If you're coming along, bring a pair of knitting needles and some yarn with you, so you can have a go. Gillian will be showing us some garments and samples knitted using the technique. The methods works for everything from knitted garments, to accessories, footware and it is also a much more interesting way of working squares for blankets.

I'm looking forward to a really interesting evening.

February Meeting

This evening we were visited by Terry Viner, a rather larger than life figure, no offense! His sense of humour had us in stitches, not of the knitted variety!
Terry's subject was cleaning machines, and we were in for a treat.
In front of him, one punchcard machine, which was rapidly taken apart, with piles of screws on the table(a good idea to put them in a pot so they don't go walk abouts). No such problems for Terry. Once the machine was in pieces, out came the long brush and the fluff inside was soon banished. Oiling and checking needles was part of the process too. Simple, we thought! Then the job of putting it together, again no problem for Terry. Voila, one clean, oiled and perfectly working knitting machine! Don't think I'd be so confident doing it alone at home!
After a short break Terry taught us some tricks with the ribber and the transfer carriage. Talk about making life easier. Terry's background meant he understood the workings of the machines and accessories and could work out simpler methods to do things. Well worth listening to!
If anyone out there gets the chance to see Terry please make the effort, you will learn something.
Also this evening people were shown the article about the club in the local newspaper. This article has since been repeated in a local free paper, so lots of publicity for us.

February is here already

The February meeting is almost upon us. Terry Viner is coming to talk to us and show us just what we should be doing to keep our machines in tip top condition. Just in time for spring cleaning!

I know the machine will benefit from a bit of tlc. It's certainly been put through its paces recently, knitting the blankets at the Stitch and Creative Craft show at Sandown.

Do you think I can persuade Terry to clean my other machines whilst he is here? Perhaps not, just a few too many.

If anyone is thinking of coming along to the meeting, you'll be made very welcome. We'll be starting at 8 pm prompt.

Photocall

We are so proud of our club, we had a large write up in the local newspaper which hopefully will bring us new members. There was a large photo of some club members and once again, Liz's trusty machine! Hopefully this publicity can only be good for machine knitting.

Esher 2007

Liz with trusty machine and another part of our display showing examples of stitches which can be knitted on a machine.

View of part of display.

Baby items knitted on the standard gauge machine. The red and white waistcoat is felted wool.

An example of fun knitting by the Middlesex Machine Knitting Club. This beach picnic set has all you need for a day at the beach. A sundress, sun hat, towel, mobile phone, i pod, suntan lotion, juice carton, lipstick, purse with loose change, water melon and food, including battenburg cake and chocolate swiss roll! And there is a bag to carry it all in.

This shawl was knitted on the Silver Reed LK150 using hand knitting double knit yarn.

Esher Show 2007

Once again members of Fleet Knitting Club helped to man the Guild of Machine Knitters stand at this show. We were relegated to the "basement" this year so hope everyone found us! We were lucky to have a large area to fill, lots of machine knitted goodies and two machines set up and working! We were knitting blankets for Middlesex hospital maternity unit.

We had plenty of visitors, some ex knitters and people interested in starting to machine knit. One nice thing was the number of younger people who seemed interested. Maybe we should think like the Americans, get them hooked on the "Hobby" machines which use the fancy hand knitting yarns, and then they will progress to standard gauge. Also a lot of questions on various aspects of knitting , which we hopefully answered.

Yes, we enjoyed our time at the show, saw other interesting crafts, and came away inspired. Maybe not as much there as in previous years for the machine knitter, but we are definitely alive and kicking!

Photocall

A few days before Christmas I had a phone call from the local newspaper. They wanted to do a feature about our knitting club. I gave them some information about what we do at the club, the charities we support and told them about our blogspot. The reporter asked if she could send a photographer to take our picture and could we get some of the ladies together before the next meeting in February as she would like to feature us in the paper in January.

So always willing to oblige, I sent out an e-mail to most members and rang a few others and asked them to come to have their photograph taken. In all there was 6 of us, all posing round the knitting machine, looking as if we were watching and admiring. Naturally we all wanted to have our good side featured!

We are now all watching the local papers to see when we get featured! As soon as we see the article I'll let you know, and if it's on the newspapers own website we'll post a link.