Letters

Does anyone know if it is possible to use double knitting yarn on a Toyota 901 please? I’m finding it difficult to get 4-ply in the yarn I would like.

There are lots of different crafts including, hand-crafted wooden gifts, decorated hessian bags, a lady covering old tired comfy shoes, a hat maker and willow basket maker. There’s free admission and a raffle for two charities. The hotel postcode is PE15 9LH and please call Barbara on 01354-651734 for more details.

You may not know that I also run a knitting club and we meet once a month in Hounslow, West London. About 18 months ago a number of club members asked if we could hold a Knit & Natter Day. They’d attended similar events and found them both enjoyable and stimulating. The only drawback was the travelling distance and transport so on 17th September we held our first Knit & Natter from 10.30 am to 4.00 pm. It was a great experience, but full of stresses and a few strains leading up to the day. Any club contemplating such an event might find my checklist a help, as I know of no instruction booklet on how to set it up.

Find a venue We were lucky to have a club member on the hall committee of a local church – All Saints in Hampton, Middlesex. The hall had plenty of room, was light and airy with parking and disabled access. It was also reasonably priced for the hire, so it didn’t break the bank.

Find a date It’s important to hire the hall when as many members as possible can attend.

Decide on an entry price and what it will include We decided on £5 plus free coffee or tea. If we’d charged a nominal amount for the drinks, it would have helped to defray the costs. Many people who attended wanted to give us a donation for their teas.
Invite exhibitors to the event. We were lucky to have Brenda Bristow from Heathercraft, Sue Castro and Nina Miklin for the day. Others we invited were either away or had previous commitments.

Find a guest speaker Carol Chambers agreed to be ours but things were touch and go, as she was due to have a knee operation and thought it might be scheduled on the week of our Knit and Natter. Thankfully it was done ahead of time, which was a great relief to us and showed, once again, that she’s a fine designer and speaker.

Publicise the event MKM and the GMK newsletter informed many machine knitters and messages were placed on some Yahoo knitting group sites. The church newsletter also carried details before the event.

Ask club members to demonstrate aspects of knitting if they’ve some special skills We’ve a very talented group of knitters involved in other crafts as well. Jenny Kelly used DesignaKnit to design and knit our logo. Barbara Logan demonstrated her sock machines and allowed visitors to have a go. She also created our embroidered name badges, so visitors would know who we were! Norma Valvona demonstrated adding embroidery to knitwear with her sewing machine. Brenda Moger and Margaret Grant helped anyone with hand knitting problems. Sandra Saunderson and Janice Engall showed how to make Dorset and woven buttons. This proved to be extremely popular and I think almost everyone who attended left with a Dorset button made at the event. All our members (except one with a holiday booked a year in advance) supported the event. It was a real team effort with not enough space here to mention everyone, but in the end we all enjoyed ourselves.

Organise the front-of-house Janet Naylor posted herself at the entrance to take money and issue tickets. Sandra’s husband Harry took charge of parking and directing traffic.

Middlesex Machine Knitters meet on the second Wednesday of the month (except for December) at Hounslow Community Association Hall, 9 Montague Road, Hounslow, London TW3 1JY and everyone is very welcome. Whether we decide to do it again will be discussed at our next club meeting but I do hope so. I’m sure the first time you try something is always the most difficult and we should know that, we’re machine knitters!

I would like to thank all the exhibitors for coming to our show and taking their chance with us. We had 150 people through the doors, coming from far and wide. Thank you to all the visitors and to all our club members. They worked very hard keeping the teapot going. Also a big thank you to Iris Bishop who once again gave a fantastic talk.
Patricia Dadson

Hi
I have found a better alternative to sponge on the sponge bars. I have replaced the sponge with a row of 12 conical springs, the type found in AAA battery packs purchased from Maplins Electronics. A battery pack costs 89p and has four springs. Remove the springs are attach to the sponge bar then cove with a length of metal tape, the type found in retractable tape measures. The smaller type are usually 1 metre long and the same width as the sponge bar. Purchased from our local hardware store these are £1.29 for a twin pack.
When the tape is cut from the holder remember to put Sellotape over each end, they are very sharp. You just have to remember when inserting the sponge bar it has to be inserted upside down so that the springs are facing away from the needles. I use this method in both the main bed and the ribber attachment. The bar works perfectly and I have been using it for over a year now and the springs are still in perfect condition. Up until I created this method the sponge bar was the absolute bain of my life, very hard to find, expensive and messy to replace on a DIY basis. I hope this helps.

Having fallen in love with Tasmania on a short visit in 2001 we decided that this is where we’d like to spend our retirement and in 2003 took the giant step and moved over here. (We’re very fortunate as our son and daughter with their respective partners and children have joined us here.) I’ve been an avid machine knitter since the 80s and had accumulated a large number of magazines and yarn. I had to decide what to bring and what to leave so I selected only about six magazines and the best of the yarn (which was four very large cartons). The rest I’m afraid found its way to the local charity shop. Since coming out here we’ve made some amazing life changes and have been incredibly busy but my machines have always been there and I’ve knitted the occasional sweater.

At first we had a property with about 15 acres of pasture so with the help of a friend we purchased half a dozen cows and bred calves. I’d never have believed that one day I’d be guiding a large black bull down into a paddock with the help of just a stick! My husband unfortunately has had some health problems so in 2007 we downsized to a more manageable property so once again I found myself sitting at my knitting machines.

Then I hit a problem and didn’t know where to turn but a search on the net soon found the Hobart Machine Knitters group which I was very pleased to join. We meet once a month and exchange ideas, tips and patterns. I had a Brother 950i and a Pfaff E6000 but I decided to sell my E6000 as it seemed very heavy to use and my back didn’t like it. I found a buyer through the group but of course lived to regret selling it.

One of the other members had been lucky enough to find several machines at the recycling shops and offered me an old Pink Passap. This has turned out to be the best thing that could have happened as, although it is old and the beds are discoloured, it still knits like a dream. I must admit though, that I miss being able to program a pattern into the computer and just get on with it. I have to sit down with paper, pencil and calculator and write a pattern now. Thank goodness for the magic formulae. Unfortunately we can’t buy machine knitting yarn here in Tasmania. I’ve managed to purchase some 2/30s from mainland Australia but all the lovely yarns you have there are just not available locally. I’ve been on UK websites and drooled over all those lovely yarns, but the cost of shipping it out here makes it too expensive. In the meantime I’m working my way through my four cartons, much of which is industrial, with some Hobby and Silky plus small amounts of allsorts.

I’ve just knitted a version of the Design Line knitted blouse by Rita Rubery in the December 1994 issue! I’m really looking forward to receiving MKM soon and even if I can’t get the right yarn hopefully I’ll be inspired to make my own version of your patterns. I hope I haven’t bored you to death with the above but thought you might like to know why someone was obviously reading very old magazines. Kind regards from Anne Hull in Tasmania.

She knitted it with six weaving sections and made a very good job of it. Next I think it will be the Ann Baker shrug, because it’s very fashionable for an 11-year old and an ideal project for her to make. Both Heather and I thank you very much for the magazine. Best wishes from Carol Cochran

It’s a lot of fun to fiddle with, so look it up now at http://birrell.org/andrew/knotwork/ and enjoy!