January Meeting

Alexandra Palace

Just a quick note to say that Mary-Lou, Saira & Alison will be at Ally Pally on 13th October, and we're aiming to meet up at the Knit & Relax stand sometime between 1pm & 3pm. If anyone else is there, come along & say hello, and show off your acquisitions ...!

Meeting on Saturday 13th January

Just to let you all know that we won't be in the Family Area of Ethos at our next meeting as they've been promoting this for children recently. So, instead, they've booked us a table in the restaurant. As I could only really say that about 12-15 members would turn up (you never can tell) they were only happy to book a table for twelve. It seems also that, because we can't ever give definite numbers, they are only happy if we book from month to month and even then I keep being told "we'll see how it goes". Saturday is a very busy day for them, being in the centre of Maidstone and, understandably, they have to always aim for what's going to earn them the most profit. It may be that, in the end, this venue isn't going to work for us but we'll just have to see.

We've Voted with our Feet!

It seems we've voted with our feet and we will be moving over to Ethos for the December meeting with a view to making that our permanent venue but we'll see how it goes . . .

See you all next Saturday!

Change of Venue? Please Comment

At our last meeting, it seemed to be generally agreed that a change of venue was needed and, as Sue had just collected a menu from Ethos, Mary-Lou and I went to check it out. We were both impressed with it. The atmosphere, decor, etc, are excellent and the staff friendly but the manager wasn't available to talk to us about whether we could use it as a venue for Maidstone Knitters or not.


Chris met us there and had already ordered a drink when we arrived so Chris and I decided, as we were there, we'd sample the food (as well as the drinks) and ordered a couple of their snacky things.


Again, excellent! As the name 'Ethos' implies, "all the food is from fresh produce and cooked on the premises. No artificial flavourings, taste enhancers or preservatives are used and only a minimum amount of salt". They "only cook in olive oil and even this is kept to a minimum with just a light spray. Sauces, dressings and dips are made from low fat natural yoghurt, fromage frais, olive oil or are clearly described and the kitchen does not have a deep fat fryer". This is what I read on the menu.

When I hadn't heard from the Manager, I rang yesterday and it seems that the place is already becoming really popular and several groups have made regular bookings so, if we want to use that as our regular venue, we don't want to be hanging around too long thinking about it. In fact, there is one group that has already booked the second Saturday in every month but, luckily, that one has booked for the morning.

At our last meeting, I think we'd decided that we'd meet at the Muggleton in December and then move over to Ethos if possible in January but what I'm proposing is that we make the move for December and give it a try to see how it works out. The manager is happy to reserve us a table in the family area and can't see any problem with us knitting and, in his words, we could give it a try. I can get in touch with all the members I have contact details for before then so that all are aware of the change. If we leave it until January to make a regular booking, it may be that a regular booking is no longer available for the time that we want it and, if it doesn't work out, we can always move back over to the Muggleton until we find something else.

What do you all think?

Catching up on the News!

We've all been so busy lately that this blog's got a bit neglected so here are some photos showing what we've all been up to at Maidstone Knitters.

At our September meeting, Sue showed us how to make a wire bracelet that looks like it's knitted but it actually isn't as it would be very difficult to knit with wire above a certain gauge. The resulting bracelet is sturdy yet elegant looking but does indeed look as if it's been knitted.

Here's her demonstration in the photo below. Her trick is to bend the wire over a knitting needle like this.


When the piece is long enough to go around the wrist, you need to work the same amount again and then bend it in half so that the vees can lock into one another and continue like that until you have a piece that's deep enough. If you're lucky, the result will look like this!



Sue had also been working on some freeforming using tapestry wool and this is the colourful result.


At the October meeting, a few of us had already been to the Knitting & Stitching Show at Ally Pally and some of us were planning to go a second time! More donations came in for the Cancer Charities Craft Fair which is to be held in the Tithe Barn at Lenham on 18th November. Sue donated an entire Aran knitted outfit which includes a sweater, skirt, snood and fingerless gloves and Jackie had made some hats and mittens.


There are now loads of knitted items which have been donated by Maidstone Knitters and various people in Blogland!

Our next meeting is due to take place on Saturday 11th November between 1-3pm in the upstairs lounge of the Muggleton Inn, 8 High Street, Maidstone. New and old members alike are always welcome!

The 18th November will, of course, find a lot of us at the Craft Fair. Lots of photos to follow!

Plastic Knitting!

Maidstone Knitters seems to be going from strength to strength. At July's meeting, we had two more new members - Marie and Sue. Sue's a textile artist and brought along some of her work to show us. She knits with plastic as she likes to draw attention to the increasing volume of plastic which we use in the hopes that we might start to turn the plastic tide. The dress below, entitled 'Address', is made from postal plastic - all those items which used to arrive in brown paper envelopes and now come in plastic bags.


'Deep Blue' is crocheted from cotton string which is then tufted using a rag rug technique with plastic bags from garments sent mail order. Everybody loved this one as it was lovely and squidgy. It would make a great bag if it had handles added but wouldn't be practical as it's so heavy!


Then there's the knitted tube, again using plastic. A simple tube knitted on a circular needle which Sue made herself.


Certainly something different and you can see more of her work here. I wish I'd remembered to take a photo of the gorgeous knitted wire bracelet Sue brought along. Hopefully, she may bring it again in September when she's going to teach us the technique on how to create wire knitting so that, hopefully, we'll all be able to make one of those fab bracelets!

So, it was a really enjoyable meeting. Marie was knitting a soft pink scarf with slight frills at the ends. I took my beaded lace scarf and probably did more unknitting than knitting as I find it difficult to talk and knit anything even slightly complicated at the same time. Mary-Lou was knitting a bag in Noro Blossom that she's going to felt and Sharon was knitting what seemed to be the longest scarf in the world but said that she wasn't going to stop until her yarn ran out! LOL Sharon also brought along a really cute bear she'd made out of Sandra Polley's book. Cecilia was being very virtuous and was knitting a pair of wristwarmers for the Charity Craft Fair and Mary-Lou gave me another moebius to add to the collection. Margaret was knitting a bath mat out of stash and bargain yarns and Jackie was working on a Knitted Babe. Holly was being Holly and taking everything in interspersed with bouts of boutique shopping where she bought a really nice black top. She'd been busy in between meetings making finger knitted scarves and next time I'm going to show her how to make a safety pin bracelet as she was admiring the one I made.

Cecilia also brought along a copy of her local paper, Medway Messenger, in which the article on our event at the Chequers Centre appeared. For some strange reason it hadn't been featured in the Maidstone edition! Lots of chat and 'show and tell' went on and we decided that a visit to the new yarn store, Stash, in Putney was called for in the not too distant future.