Step this way.....

Step this way to the all new blog for the Braintree Knitting group -

www.braintreeknittinggroup.blogspot.com

The new site will be kept up to date with all the latest news and future meeting dates so please go have a look and bookmark it as the new home for the group!

Next Meeting - Tuesday 6th November

Apologies for my absense last week - sick baby + useless husband = Me in all night!
For future meetings, we've decided that, as most bank holidays occur at the end of the month , our future meetings will be the first Monday of the month.

Although saying that the next meeting will be on the first Tuesday as the Monday falls on Bonfire night and some people have other commitments for the night.

Look forward to seeing you all on the 6th!
Michelle

Next Meeting - TUESDAY 2ND OCTOBER

Hi All,

Next meeting has been cancelled and changed to TUESDAY 2nd October as Jenny is away before this and Johns birthday is on the Ist (Happy Birthday John - have a lovely day!)
See you all then!

No August meeting

Hi Everyone
We had a very chatty meeing in July, not much knitting got done.
We've decided that as it's the holiday season, we'll skip the meeting in September & go for 2 in September.
Next meeting, therefore is Monday September 3rd 7.30 pm @ Phillers. Look forward to seeing you all there. Have a good break.
Jenny

Next Meeting - 30 July

For anyone stopping by on the blog, potential new members or those existing members who are as forgetful as me (hmm, I think I'm the only one in that catagory!), the next meeting is 30th July.

Our youngest visitor

Last night we had a visit from Kerrie Allman of 'Hipknits', who brought along her delightful 3 month old daughter Trinity. There was a lot of oohing & aahing & passing Trinity round for cuddles, but we did get some knitting done. thank you for coming Kerrie, you will be welcome any time.
As well as welcoming Kerrie we were able to say hello to Cath, Jane & Abbie.
Jane had been so inspired by her first visit last time that she had been out & bought baby yarn & had produced several minute outfits for a prem baby unit.
Anne had been seduced by the Innocent Smoothie pledge to donate 50p to Help the Aged for every tiny bottle 'hat' that they receive. She proceeded to produce from a bag, lots of miniature works of art, all in different styles of knitting & was able to pass the necessary pattern details on to other members.
Other members had found other types of charity knitting to do, including trauma toys for the emergency services & teddy bears.
As a by the way, as well as Ann manning her craft stall for Farleigh during 'Tea at Three on this Friday, BBC Essex will be doing a broadcast from Phillers, so anyone who can come along will help, we might even get a plug.

Great News for June 25th Meeting

Message from Michelle:
'Today I had a cup of tea with Kerrie Allman from Hipknits. She kindly hand delivered my magazine and I invited her in. We got chatting and I have invited her to our next meeting! She seems keen and asked if she could bring her baby, Trinity along which I thought would be OK.
It will be like having a yarn celebrity amongst us - yarn supplier, editor of YF and soon to be author !'
Exciting news, we also had 2 new members to the 'May' meeting. There was also discussion on charity knitting, so keep bringing ideas. Hope to see you all there.
Jenny

No May Meeting!

April's meeting was what it is all about. I was having trouble with my sock pattern, so Tracy was very patiently able to help me through it. We all discussed the possibility of knitting for charity & are charged with bringing some ideas for charities to the next meeting.
It's Bank Holiday on the last Monday of May, so our next meeting will be Monday 4th June, 7.30 in Phillers. Michelle has done a good job with the publicity & has had several enquiries, so we look forward to seeing yet more in June.
Jenny

New members

Hi Everyone
I'm rather late with this post, sorry! The good news is we had two new members to the March meeting, Maureen & Pam. Welcome!
Michelle is undertaking a new publicity drive with an updated poster etc. So watch this space.
After speaking to one member after last meeting, who was concerned about walking to the car park in the dark, I thought I'd just say that we all look after each other after the meeting, no one has to walk alone! Don't be put off by the after dark culture.
Next meeting is Monday 30th April at Phillers. Let's see if we can have the downstairs full.
Happy Kitting
Jenny

Next meeting

Hi everyone
The next meeting is on Monday 26th March at 7.30 at Phillers. Hoping all the fluey bugs will have gone & we'll have a full house. The clocks go on on Saturday night so the evenings should be lighter!!

Mango Moon

I've just received a card at the cafe, addressed to Tina, but it's for us all, with the following info.-
'Mango Moon beautiful handspun & recycled handknitting yarns made by women's cooperatives in Nepal & Indonesia, distributed in the UK by moralfibre ltd.
See the collection at Craft, Hobby & Stitch @ NEC Birmingham 18-20 Feb & The London Stitch & Creative Hobby Crafts Show Excel London 22-24 Feb
moral-fibre ltd 01422 381359 email: sales@moral-fibre.net www.moral-fibre.net'
Looks good.
Jenny

First meeting of 2007

Hi Everyone
It was good to see members last night & a belated 'Happy New Year' was chorused. Most people had new projects under way. These came in all shapes & sizes from more socks to Michelle starting to 'wrestle' with a complicated baby coat, knitted all in one piece.
We all tucked into plates of cakes & cups of tea or coffee. The next meeting will be Monday 26th February, 7.30 pm @ Phillers. All new members will be welcome.
Jenny

WOOLLY HAT WEEK

Hi, it's me again.
One of the 'projects' I'm doing is a woolly hat for a seafarer. I picked the pattern up in Peachey Ethknits. Go to http://www.biss.org.uk/richtext.asp?page_id=25&content_id=326 for details. I've finished a small hat, but I may keep that one, anyone else interested in the scheme?
Jenny

Message from Jenny.
Hi Everyone, Happy New Year.
Next meeting 29th January. We weren't able to do anything 'Christmassy' so I thought since it's close to Burns Night [25th]we'd do something Scottish - nothing elaborate. I'm planning some typically Scottish teatime treats, so don't have too much supper before you come.
I went to 'Peachey Ethknits' good wool shop in Maldon [does Debbie Bliss] & they're quite interested as there's nothing in Maldon, so they may come along. I'm feeling smug as I've started 2 [yes 2] new projects!!!

Just a quickie

The next meeting will be on the last Monday of January as usual and I will leave it to Jenny to let you know if it will be the usual (knit and chat, and chat some more :D) or whether we will do something different . I know nobody would mind either way and we need things to be as stress-free and enjoyable for everybody as possible, including our hostess :D I've been reminded that I won't be able to go anyway :(

Thanks John and Jenny for coming to let us in and out again last night, we had a good meeting with a good turn-out again. Have a Happy Christmas everyone and see you next year!

Report at last and Boreham

I mostly can't remember what happened at the last meeting as it's been a bit of a mad week. Michelle made it and looked remarkably well after what she had to go through. Her stories gave me more gray hairs but it was lovely to see her and hear about Thomas :) Sally was 'knitting a river' (untangling one by the looks of things!) Tracy has finished her lovely i-cord jumper, Christine was finishing a blanket for her new grandson (Congratulations Johanna!) I couldn't see Jenny or Cathy very well (we must sort out the tables so we're not split into 2 groups that don't manage to talk) and Jean and Enid were both knitting what looked like really nice things but yet again we weren't 'mingling' sufficiently.

On the night, Cathy, Michelle and Sally couldn't make it to Boreham, Jenny and I managed to miss a turning because we were gassing and were a little late and Linda didn't turn up, so we hope you're ok Linda and we feel like we haven't seen you for ages. Was it our crocheting that put you off?? :D Hope to see you next meeting. Tracy was there wearing her i-cord jumper and very nice it looked too.

The Boreham ladies made us feel very welcome and are a very nice crowd, we'll be going again ;) It was lovely to meet you. Jenny found that she had been at school with one lady (sorry, I don't remember names yet) and so they talked a lot and knitted very little. Tracy, Jenny and myself all bought some sock wool from Vicki which made Tracy very happy indeed and we saw some lovely knitting, beadwork AND card-craft going on. They're a crafty lot! We're hoping they might come to Braintree after Christmas to join us.

I think that's it, please add comments. Especially you Linda, we want to know you're ok. And Julia we're hope you're still 'with us' and doing ok too.

Next meeting 27th November.

7th November, The Grange, Boreham

So far there are 7 of us going to The Grange at Boreham to meet with the Chelmsford knitters on Tuesday 7th November.

I'll do a report on the last meet soon. It was mostly chatting and drinking tea ;)

Taking names for 7th November

Especially you Jenny :) If anybody would like to go to Boreham on 7th November please put your name below, otherwise we'll probably wait until December.

Also, I have had an email from a lady in Saffron Walden who has a substantial amount of yarn for charity knitting and some knitting mags. Does anybody know who might want them or would they like it for themselves to do some charity knitting? She will deliver I think (I've just read the email but I am confused from too much decorating, lol)

Boreham meet and CHARITY KNIT IN for Water Aid.

It looks like it might be 7th November for a joint meeting with the Chelmsford knitters then? I wonder if I should say that date provisionally as we won't do anything in October now and a few of us can't do 23rd November. Vikki from Chelmsford has our email addy now so keeps me up to date with what they're doing. I know we're all busy but shall we see if we can make 7th happen?

There won't be a meeting for the Chelmsford group on 19th October now as they are having a Charity Knit-In for National Knitting Week and are all going to help to 'knit a river' by knitting blue squares for Water Aid on Monday 16th October from 7-11pm at The Grange, Boreham (where they hold all their meetings) if anybody wants to go along and add their squares. Here's the 'Knit a River' blogspot for info and pattern, etc. http://knitariver.blogspot.com/ If you knit some squares beforehand all the better. They're hoping for 50 people so go if you can!

We have a baby :)

Please have a look at the post below for Michelle's message.

Thomas was born on Friday night after M. had a stay in hospital with suspected pre-eclampsia and he's absolutely fine and weighing in at 5.5lbs. She's brought him home from St. John's and everybody is happy and well :D

Congratulations from all of us!

Going to Boreham

I've had an email back from our Chelmsford contact ;) and here are the dates that they will be meeting, so we can say which one we would like to go to.

Tuesday 3rd October
Monday 16th October - charity knit in for national knitting week will
send you details when I have them!

Thursday 19th October
Tuesday 7th November
Thursday 23rd November

We meet from 7pm onwards and we meet at The Grange pub in Boreham.
It is on the main road just off the Boreham Interchange.

Can everyone let me know which date they would like - hopefully in November
so Michelle can come too :)

Alexandra Palace Knitting and Stitching Show

Julia's comment on the last post should be brought to everybody's attention I think just in case anybody else wants to go and they miss it.

Franklin's in Chelmsford is running a coach trip on 15th October to the show. It's £23 per person and Julia thinks they still have a few places left. The coach leaves Chelmsford on Sunday morning at 8:45 am.

Have fun Julia and Jenny and anybody else who's going! :D

Excellent meeting with Crochet Lesson!

I think there were a dozen of us tonight (plus one 10 year old hanger-on, hehe) which is excellent. We had two new ladies - welcome to Enid and Jean - and the 'old faithfuls' were all there apart from Tracy who has had flu and sends apologies. Get well soon Tracy, we missed you.

Linda did a wonderful job of trying to teach us to crochet, and I think some of us did better than others, lol. It's amazing just how long you have to make a chain until the tension is right! I think with a bit of practise at home we might get there eventually ;o)

Sally has finished her lovely knitted necklace, and has just been left with stubs of fingers, bless her :)

Michelle sailed in like a galleon and got the weight off her poor swollen feet immediately. We all wish you well and a safe delivery sometime during the next month. We can't wait to see him :)

I'll be writing to the lady from Chelmsford group to see if we can meet up with them in Boreham some time in November, when we can have a look at her sock yarn and meet some more Essex knitters.

If I've forgotten anything please add comments or make a post of your own if it works for you. Can someone tell me the date of the next meeting? On a previous post it says 30th October but I think 23rd was being mentioned at the meeting. Is it always the last Monday of the month? I think that's what was decided but I get in a muddle with it.

Apologies and hope the meeting was a good one.

Sorry everyone for not letting you know I wouldn't be there but it was really last minute that I decided the headache I had was bad enough to keep me away from knitting :) It wasn't helped by the fact that we had a bit of stress from a certain little girl who is just a bit worried about starting school tomorrow.

Thanks for the emails and I'll see you soon. As Jenny's computer isn't working I think there probably won't be a report of last night's meeting ...... unless anybody else wants to do it? ;)

ADDING A NICE CLEAR MESSAGE: BRING CROCHET HOOKS TO 25TH SEPTEMBER MEET IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO LEARN.

Dates

Another lovely meeting last night. 9 of us were there and we know 2 were on holiday and Julia couldn't get there because of a late one at work, so that's still a dozen. Glad you're still with us Julia. We missed you again and hope you can come next time. Next meet will be 4th September as it's Jenny's birthday in August, and then we'll have another one on 25th September.

Suggested dates from Jenny for the rest of the year:
"30th Oct; 27th November & 18th December [might be too close to Christmas, but perhaps we could have a meal or something?] What about 25th Sept for crochet evening? I think we'd better fit in an extra Monday for a joint meeting with Chelmsford, the way things are looking. Knitting & Stitching Show is 12th-15th October.
Possible Sats for visit to Cheap Shop are:
16th; 23rd Sept."

If anyone has any comments about those dates please add them. I'll email Vicki from Chelmsford to say that we would like her to come to a meet to show us her sock yarn, maybe the November one, as long as she isn't hoping for a certain amount of sales, which we might not be able to fulfill. Actually, before I do that, I think I will do a count of how many people MIGHT be interested, as if it's only 2 or 3 then I don't want her to make a journey she might not think was worth it. We can do that on 4th September maybe.

Erm, I think that's it. Happy Knitting :)

Cooling down :)

I think we dare go near the yarn again now it's not so hot, lol.

I had an email from somebody in Chelmsford who saw our poster in Franklin's window and she runs the Chelmsford knit group. They have 14 members and they meet fortnightly (I'm jealous!) I'm going to copy a bit of her email, which looks very interesting to me:

"I am emailing you as I have just started up ‘ The Joy of Sox’. I have small stock of Opal and Lana Grossa self patterning sock yarn, kits and needles and I basically do sock ‘parties’. I plan to visit groups, clubs and individuals that can get together a few friends at home and then people can purchase what they want. There are so few stockist of Opal in this area most have to order over the internet so it is good to be able to see before you buy. If you would be interested in me visiting your group at one of your meetings or arranging a sock party at home then please let me know and we could sort out a date."

I thought this sounded like fun, and how about we meet up with the Chelmsford group one day/evening for a joint meeting? It would be nice if we could manage it.

19th June Meeting

First of all, Julia sent apologies but she didn't have the best of days yesterday. Julia, we all missed you and hope you to see you soon.

Last night we had 6 new members (yay!) and it meant that most of the discussion was done in small groups. We might have to find another way of setting up the tables so that we can all talk together. I hate missing things :) Because of this we didn't organise Tiptree, but it seems that there may be a problem as it is Summer and getting everybody together is going to be hard. I think next month when we don't have the shock of a lot of new members, unless it happens again, we will make a more concerted effort to see who's about and when. Jenny, I hope your diary turns up. Two of our new ladies were asked/cajoled/convinced/forced to give us crochet lessons soon so we'll get that organised too.

Hmm, a lot of 'going to' - will we get organised I wonder? Never mind, it's all good fun :D

Let's do this properly. What was everyone making? Jenny was struggling with a sock, but Tracy tried to get her to calm down and get the thing done, Chris was knitting a Clanger for her grandson, Kathy was doing something 'pretty in pink' but I couldn't see that far down the table. We had Thelma and Ann/e knitting little tiny dolls to put into margarine tub beds, Tracy's still knitting stocking stitch in a lovely marl and it's getting on her nerves, Michelle mostly read books and moaned her way through Simply Knitting - especially those beach bunnies ;) but did some of her lovely Birch shawl which is neeeeeaaaarly done. I messed up my Clapotis and had to tink, Sally's doing a lovely bilberry-coloured jacket, Janet was doing Charity knitting, Ann/e was knitting something with lovely stitch patterns but I had no chance to ask her what. She's very keen and is going to have a fleece from Linda and do the whole thing from scratch. Linda was crocheting a very pretty white lacey top .... I think that's it. Apologies for those who I didn't get to see what they were doing. Last night was just too exciting. We had 'Pub Knitting', 'A Gathering of Lace', an Emma King book of funky knits ..... I tell you what ...... 9.30 comes around too soon :D

Next meeting 31st July. We weren't sure whether to go every 4 weeks or stick to 'the last Monday of the month' but we'd miss Michelle and Linda if we went in 4 weeks from now so last Monday of the month it is.

Message from Sally

There's a comment from Sally on the post before last but I thought I'd better bring it up here so we don't miss it. For the original please see the post before Julia's kind offer where we're waffling about the KIP/Carnival :)

Can we bring diaries to the meet on 19th so that we can arrange a Saturday trip to Tiptree soon?

You know, you can all post your own entries now that you know the password. Go for it! :D

E-mail from Julia

Dear all,

As some of you know, we’re off to Leeds this week. I realise that this email is a bit late but if anyone would like me to pick anything up from Texere Yarns, please let me know. The web address is www.texere.co.uk . Just let me know what you would like me to get you and a second colour choice by Tuesday evening. We’ll be leaving very early on Wednesday morning and I probably won’t have time to check emails before I go.

I’m also planning a visit to Coldspring Mill so please let me know if there is any Debbie Bliss that you would like me to look out for. I don’t think you get so much of a choice there so just let me know if there are any colours you don’t want.

Tina/Michelle – I don’t have any of the email addresses for the Braintree group. Could you please pass this message on? (Sorry Tina, this won’t help your yarn diet ;-))

See you all soon,
Julia

KIP day

I phoned the museum and the lady said that the museum area itself wouldn't be ideal as it is too small to seat us and as it's Carnival day the courtyard is being used by a marching/brass band, and the Learning for Life rooms are being used by another group.

She wished us luck and thought it was a 'good thing' and especially seemed interested when I said that we would have gimmicky things like the giant needles, knitting with plastic bags, etc., and so I said that if this didn't happen on 10th June we could as a group promote ourselves in their courtyard at any time (maybe later on in the Summer when we are more sure of good weather) and she said that would be great. That would give us more time to be organised and get even more stuff together to draw the public in.

She suggested I phone the Town Hall Centre about using the Gallery area as there may be an art exhibition of some kind at the time and we would therefore get members of the public passing through. However, it could be a day that the market research groups are using it. Having been to an art show there I also think that wherever we sat we would be in the way of something and just end up being a nuisance. If there isn't an art show that day, there would be nothing to get the public in and it would just be us sitting there having an extra meeting :)

So, we have 5 days to find a venue and agree on it or we will have to come off the WWKIP website and do something of our own later. Can anybody give me any feedback as to what to do? We did think about Hannays but it is really too small. If nobody comments then I think we will have to give up on 10th June and just do something of our own later. Any last ideas? Anybody think the Town Hall Centre Gallery would work?

Next meeting date change to 19th June

As a reminder and for people who weren't there last night, the next meeting will be on
19th June, instead of the last Monday of the month.

I'm phoning the Museum today to see if we can do our knitting in public there, and will post later. I think Jenny is phoning the Fire Station which has its Open Day on 10th June to see if they can offer anything.

Well done everybody who turned out in the rain :)