June 2014

For the June meeting we had guests from the Woodley Machine Knitting Club. Each of them told a story about their knitting journey and what had inspired them to create. Each story was accompanied by beautiful pieces of crafted items that were passed around for everyone to inspect and ask questions. Its a great way to extend knowledge and hear about new ways to try texture and combinations of fibres.

Here are some of the items shared with us.

This wonderful design was inspired by a garment being worn in the shopping precinct. The Woodley knitter then went home and designed it.

 

Our monthly club competion was  won by Valerie in the advanced class with the covered basket.

The purple scrunchie was the winning entry for

the beginners section and made by Mandie.

What a neat idea!

May 2014

Edgings and braids was the theme this month. Sandra demonstrated a number of different types and gave advice on the yarns and tensions, as well as prevention of curling hems.

The competion this month.
Shirley 3rd. Bracelet with 2 colours and pink beads.
Valerie 2nd. Chunky sleeveless sweater with deep fancy rib neck.
Marcia 1st. Peach baby cardigan.

April 2014

This month saw Valerie giving a demonstration on using a lace carriage on the brother machine and creating picot edgings. This went on to develop into a great discussion and demonstrations of various lace techniques, transfer lace, fully fashioned, pin tuck lace, thread lace and fine lace.


  

 A challenge was set last month to knit a hat, scarf or cowl for the competition, the following are the entries.

Beginners:
3rd Stephanie, multi pink snood with ewrap cast on
2nd Mandy, bright pink hat with flower ewrap
1st Jenny, scarf and hat in mutli fleck yarn

Advanced:
5th Marcia, small pink hat with rouleau cord top
4th Sandra, small multu hat
3rd Annette, small navy hat
2nd Valerie, shawl produced with chunky machine
1st Shirley, cap and headwrap 2 piece combo

March 2014

We have quite a few new people joining or coming by for a few meetings so we decided to demonstrate at the March meeting numerous ways to cast on and off. Unless doing various methods until well tried and tested, some of the longer standing members also forget just how many there are and their uses.

Here are a list of some of the Cast Ons we tried:

• weaving cast on
• latch tool cast on
• ewrap cast on
• cast on with nylon cord
• using the brother cast on comb with every stitch
• using a comb with alternate stitches

There was talk about which ones were open ended and so unsuitable as bottom edges unless hemmed up or another piece of knitting or hem was to be added. Mostly these were used to cast on waste knitting and if used for waste the nylon cord was used for 1 row prior to knitting a closed edge cast on with main yarn. Others were finished edges with some more firm and others more stretchy. 



Here are a list of cast offs:

• run off on waste yarn for cast off off the machine using various methods like binding off, latch tool cast off and kitchener stitch
• latch tool cast off transferring and knitting the cast off
• latch toolcast off through the loops
• cast off behind the latches

A challenge was set to knit and bring to the next meeting, an item either hat or scarf from patterns that were with the provided notes and using a cast on and a cast off method that was demonstrated.

Whilst introducing ourselves and our machine experience to a visitor we hope will become a new longstanding member, we added up the number of machines we have. It was shocking there are 42 various models between 10 members!! The visitor had not yet acquired a machine so as a club we can provide a lot of information on our experience for them and where to get them.

This months competition.
Advanced:
Joint 1st Marcia a chunky mohair jacket
Joint 1st Valerie with a wave lace design in King Cole yarn
3rd Phyllis knitted a yellow baby tuck lace cardigan

 

 
Beginners:
Annette provided the only entry this time, a pink baby cardigan.

 

 

February 2014

This month we had a talk about the Brother Knitleader and Knitmaster/Silver Read Knitradar with a short demonstration. The key benefits being that it enables any garment shape, pattern and tension to be knitted. All that is needed are the garment shape outlines being drawn to correct sizings and the tension square per pattern being correctly knitted, treated and measured. The knitleader/knitradar can then be set up accurately and shapes be knitted to size.

The decreasing and increasing happens to correspond to the outlines moving wider or narrower as the pattern moves in the tool when it reaches armhole and neck shaping or doing sleeves. Running the machine without yarn is a good idea to see how many rows and how many stitches will be needed for shaping if you want to make it more even overall in the shape or check how many it will be. It doesn't matter too much to be so exact as long as you are consistent each side and to match backs to fronts. Writing it down is best as key points to make sides and shapes match. Experience helps and less dry runs could be needed with confidence.

It is more important though for raglan shaping to get shaping even. Knitting without the yarn the number of rows to be worked with shaping and the stitches to lose or add over a number of rows in advance helps to calculate an even approach for backs, fronts and sleeves that need to match exactly and the fully fashioned shaping look good. For example:
Starting with 61 either side of 0 knitting the length to armhole
Decreasing both sides to start the armhole raglan from 55 each side of 0.
A dry run showed rows to end of armhole was 86 rows.
Stitches ended up going from 55 each side to 11 each side .
So losing 44 stiches each side in 86 rows, thats either 1 each side every 2 rows or 2 every 4 rows.
2 every 4 rows makes a lovely fully fashioned pattern. 

As well as the basic knitwear shapes it can help with other patterning like stripes that can be marked and then when the line is reached on the sheet to change to next colour its really visible compared to reading written patterns and charts. Intarsia can be done by drawing the coloured shapes within the garment shape and the colour changes will show clearly. Another idea is placement of small patterns. A piece of lace within a garment shape can be placed exactly where it is wanted as a single repeat design or even smaller design. this can be intarsia, lace or a fairisle.

Once the tension is worked out and the needle rule selected, each mark on the rule is a stitch on the needle bed so placement of small patterns can be easily applied.

The competition once again was very inspiring.
Annette won the beginners only entry

The advanced group had a lot of entries shown here in reverse order.
Gillian produced two cute hats
Phyllis made a Long Buckby Machine Knitting Club pattern of a Grigna cardigan with waterfall front edges
Sandra made a two colour sweater in Shamal
Valerie a beautiful delicate lace scarf
1st Marcia produced a lovely 3 colours in a row jacquard sweater with intersting neckline shape, her first venture into jacquard.

 

January 2014

The meeting started with the AGM. It was Jenny's last appearance another long standing member and sadly we said goodbye and saw two other members fill Jennys and Joans roles. The club is in its 35th year that's a very long time. The club voted to continue supporting the Berkshire MS Therapy Centre in Reading.

The October Challenge is 'anything goes' so get creative heads on and start making!

January Competition Results
Advanced:
1st Sandra - beautiful cream cardigan
2nd Sue  - another Clair Crowston creation
3rd Valerie - mini knitting project

Beginners:
1st Shirley - very 1st Passap knitted item by Shirley from 2 machines she rebuilt into 1 refurbished 

Stephanie brought in a slip stitch problem of leaving unwanted loops across the knitting.
Possibly caused by the twist of two strands going in opposite directions causing kinks. The tucking brushes could also be catching and can be removed. 

Shirley also brought in her Ann Brown suit to discuss the weaving surface after pressing and the sizing of the garment pieces. The fabric is very special the combination of textures and subtle colouring blended very well. She has decided to cut and sew the pieces and will look amazing when completed.

December 2013

We didn't have a usual meeting during December we went for a meal to the Ely on the A30 near Blackwater. It was a lovely evening the food was fantastic and we had secret Santa presents. Some thought was given to the new years set of meetings and AGM.

Joan also left, one of the long standing members and we gave her a beautiful present to thank her for all the knowledge she shared and the countless volumes of teas and biscuits she had provided.