Norfolk Machine Knitter's Club

Thanksgivining weekend made for a pretty eventfull meeting.

Our gratitude goes out to Emily for getting the library organized and up to date. We have lots of printed material for our members to use and enjoy. Ben added another book to the already ample library. A Machine Knitter’s Guide to Creating Fabrics. One more to be added next month, and then we’ll give the library a rest. 

We started a discussion as to preparation for next year, in regards to demonstrations. Ben felt that we should, perhaps, come up with a theme  (IE: colourwordk, textures, hand manipulation, ets), and gear each meeting’s demo towards that theme. We should think about it and come up with ideas for the November meeting. Rita came up with something that we had never thought of, and had us scratching our collective heads for a moment. “Freestyle machine knitting! Knitting with multiple textures, yarn weights and colours, all withing one piece. We thought that this might be a good goal for the final demo, at the end of next year!

For show and tell, Emily showed us a toques with ear flaps made using short rows. This got her looking, more deeply, into things that she could do using short row techniques that opened up the discussion to all sorts of interesting possibilities. Bonnie brought a “Cable Welt Beanie” that looked really nice. The link to the PDF file is provided, below. Ben also had been expreimenting with some touques and scarves on different types and wieghts of yarns, in preparation for our Decmenber meeting; which is a great seguay to….December’s knit-a-long event.

For December, we discussed, possible doing a knit-in, where we could all make some simple touques and/or scarves to be donated to the church to distribute to people in need within our community. As an alternate to our original sugestion, Ben floated the idea of danating the items to the Jurivinski Cancer Hospital, for cancer patients. The motion passed, so this is where our hats and scarves will be going. Check out details on the calendar (under “Events” tab). 

There was, once again discussion as to how to increase membership. There were a few great suggestions. Ben is going to reach out to both Simcoe and Port Dover libraries to see about loaning a knitting machines for their “Marker space” areas. Ben is also going to see if we can set up a table at both Simcoe & Port Dover market, to try to get some visibility. 

JoAnne Scott followed up on last month’s demo on how to create the fabric swatch for an Izzay doll, by heading up a group sew & stuff deonstration for haw to finish the Izzy doll. Once again, information on the “Izzy” doll initiatave can be found here:  https://izzydoll.org/en/ 

For the November meeting, Ben will demonstrate a couple of ideas for toques and scarves, in preparation for the December Knit-a-long. NOTE: for the December Knit-a-long, we will start the day earlier (for those who can make it) at 9am, and we will knit until around 1pm, or until we’ve had enought (the room is ours for the day). Light refreshments will be provided. 

Cable Welt Beanie PDF file: Cable Welt Beanie