KHF Conference and AGM at the University Women’s Club
3 November 2007.

A full version of this report with images is available at the Yahoo group.

Over 20 members, many of whom travelled some distance, attended the combined KHF Conference and AGM at the University Women’s Club on November 3 2007 - and many thanks to those (almost the same number) who sent apologies. Delegates enjoyed a stimulating day packed with fascinating presentations.

Mary Hawkins spoke about the uncertain future of the Knitting and Crochet Guild's nationally important collection of 10,000 knitted and crocheted items, 15,000 books and magazines and c.100,000 knitting patterns, housed in Lee Mills, Scholes, Holmfirth. Lesley O’Connell-Edwards spoke about Kathleen Kinder’s analysis of a beautiful and intriguing nineteenth-century knitted sampler in the Knitting & Crochet Guild’s collection.

Gary Hayton showed some examples of his felting and spoke about his methods for working out knit-felting shapes - we hope to hear more in future. We were honoured with a visit from Karen Finch, and Kirstie will post a paragraph on that when she returns from Kalamazoo, as well as another on Sanquhar knitting which she showed and spoke about. Mary Shoeser reminded us of Montse Stanley’s history and legacy, and showed a beautiful exhibition catalogue, Mil anys de disseny en punt, available in Spanish/Catalan from the CDMT.

Joyce Meader showed numerous pieces from her extensive collection of military knitting items including a Nazi shade card. Her talk included reproduction pieces she had knitted herself, some of which she also modelled and we only lacked a pianist to try out the knitting-related sheet music she also brought along!

The day finished with excellent presentations by two PhD students, Annie Shaw and Ruth Gilbert. Annie is working on new methods of producing seamless garments using modern technology, but her work is underpinned by historical research in museum collections of seamless fisher-wear. Annie spoke particularly about the 50 ganseys she has produced, the design of which has been inspired by the heritage of the fishing and knitting communities of the north-east coast of Britain. We sat captivated as she described weathering the ganseys by placing them in lobster pots in the sea. Ruth’s research focuses on the shaping of knitted garments and she spoke in particular about armholes, the relationship between these and the European method of making stocking heels and knitted finds at an archaeological dig at Lindisfarne Priory. Ruth will be talking about the Lindisfarne finds at the North European Symposium on Archaeological Textiles (NESAT), Copenhagen, May 2008 (see also Current News).

The day’s events emphasised the breadth and quality of work on knitting history currently in progress, highlighted many areas ripe for investigation and stressed the importance of knitting history and its need for greater recognition.

Many thanks to all the speakers for such an interesting collection of papers, to Kirstie Buckland for organising the Conference and to Kay Lacey for arranging the excellent, and elegant venue, where the next AGM and Conference will also be held on Saturday November 8 2008.