Maidstone Knitters Do WWKIP Day at the Chequers Centre

Thanks for all the good wishes for our plans which I found really encouraging. It's great to have such supportive friends! The event went well and we generated quite a bit of interest with several potential new members saying they would definitely attend our next meeting (including a textile artist who knits with plastic) and a fair few leaflets picked up. It was very hot in certain parts of the Chequers Centre particularly under the glass roofed area so we felt extremely lucky to have been placed right near the air conditioning outlet which meant we were able to keep cool all day. There were the usual minor hiccups such as arriving to find we had only been given a tiny four foot table instead of a six foot one but that was soon remedied by the obliging Chequers staff and very soon we had a whopping great big ten feet of table space as another six foot table was added to the four foot one we already had! Photo heavy post I'm afraid but sometimes, as they say, pictures speak louder than words.

So, here we have Emily working on big needles while Mary-Lou concentrates on the Loopa and Holly finger knits after being taught by moi! Holly cottoned on very quickly and made a fab finger knitted skinny scarf which she's going to add a fringe and possibly beads to the ends of. She was so taken with it, in fact, that she thinks she may finger knit one or two skinny scarves for the November Charity Craft Fair!


Here I am knitting with the gigantic needles. When this photo was taken, I was concentrating on doing a backwards knitting row so as not to have to turn the work! The gigantic needles generated a LOT of interest and double takes. One woman even wanted to record me knitting on them on her mobile phone camera as she said her DH wouldn't believe her otherwise!


A passer-by was so fascinated with the gigantic needles that she wanted to have a go!


Below is Chris making i-cord on the Prym i-cord mill so that I would have a second ball to work with when needed. This also attracted a lot of attention and comments with several people asking where they could purchase one of these handle turned french knitters.


Here's a pic of the stand which was right next to the ice cream parlour (very handy!) and, by the way, I can recommend the cappucino and chocolate double cone!


Below is Tricia doing her bit for WWKIP Day and, like the rest of us, wearing her WWKIP Day tee shirt. Mary also popped by in the morning but couldn't stay as she'd made other plans well before we decided on our event.


We all brought something for the stand in the way of yarn and/or knitted items, magazines, etc, and got asked lots of questions quite a few of which I'm pleased to say came from men. Generally, people seemed pleasantly surprised at the diversity of yarns available now and the knitted items were looked at and admired. Here's a close up of some of the items on the stand.


And another.


And yet another.


That's Cecilia on the right in the photo below. She had planned to knit on chopsticks but couldn't get hold of any in time so resorted to barbecue skewers instead!


Two more of our members, Margaret and Jackie, were able to join us for a couple of hours later in the day.


And here's Chris trying out the gigantic needles.


There were opportunities throughout the day to teach finger knitting and the Loopa. This young girl is already a knitter and stopped by to learn finger knitting.


She may be coming along to our group with an adult which will mean we have three school age members.

Some time in the morning, the Kent Messenger photographer arrived and, in the afternoon, we had a phone call from the reporter. Hopefully, the resulting article will generate even more publicity for Maidstone Knitters.